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• LIBRARY OF CUNfiRESS.5 



, H 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



/ ' 



C. S. FRANCIS & CO. 

B'.OKSELLEKS, 

554 Broadway, 
New York. 



■ m 



PRIZE ESSAY. 



CHRISTIANITY AND INFIDELITY: 



AN EXPOSITION 



OF 

THE ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES. 



ARRANGED ACCORDING TO A PLAN PROPOSED BY GEORGE BAILLIE, ESQ. 



S. S.~ HENNELL 



/& LONDON 



1867 



ARTHUR 'HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO., 
25, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
1857. 



PRINTED BY EVAN C. LEWIS, EARL-STREET, COVENTRY. 



The occasion of the present Work toas the following Advertisement, which 
appeared in the "Glasgow Reformers" Gazette" of the 6th of May , 1854, 
and in other Journals, English and Scotch : — 

THIRD PRIZE ESSAY. 



INFIDELITY against CHRISTIANITY, 

AND 

CHRISTIANITY against INFIDELITY. 

The Premium for the Layman's best Essay against Infidelity, now in the London 
Press for publication, having been paid to Mr. David M'Burnie, 33, Hanover-Square, 
Bradford, Yorkshire, after a talented and interesting competition, and an un- 
promised Premium having also been paid for the Second Best Essay, to Mr. James 
Clark, 45, Taylor-Street, Glasgow, Justice now dictates that an equal opportunity 
be afforded for the discussion of both sides of the subject; and as it seems desirable 
to obtain an able Exposition of that nature from any quarter, the Subscriber will 
pay Twenty Sovereigns for what he shall deem the most logical and complete yet 
condensed Epitome of all relevant facts, arguments, and objections urgeable : —I. By 
Infidelity against Christianity, with Answers strictly relevant thereto. And, II. 
By Christianity against Infidelity, with Answers strictly relevant thereto. But, 
First, Each Competitor will prefix to his Exposition, as his accepted rule therein, 
a copy of this Advertisement, and its Explanatory Notes. Second, Each Com- 
petitor must frame his Exposition with a rigorous regard to relevancy, brevity, 
perspicuity, and good temper, in the form of separate Propositions or Objections, 
on the Ze/£-hand pages of large folio paper, marking each objection with a running 
number, and of Answers strictly relevant thereto, on the opposite or right-liRnd 
pages, each marked with a corresponding number, in order that every Proposition 
or Objection, with its Answer, may confront each other, and be thereby 
promptly appreciable. But, if any intending Competitor wishes more information 
hereon, his Epistle thereanent to the Subscriber, shall be duly attended to, and a 
copy of the said explanatory Notes will be sent him gratis. Third, Each Com- 
petitor must, if possible, bring to the Work a zeal and research wholly unprejudiced, 
so as to present in a clear and impartial light the Quintessence of all important 
matter, which has been or might have been relevantly adduced by the ablest writers 
on both sides of the controversy ; and specifying, in foot Notes, the Title, Volume, 
Page, and Edition of each authority founded on. Fourth, To obviate all undue 
reserve or restraint, and thereby to promote a frank and vigorous Exposition, 
Competitors may, if inclined, state in a prefatory Note, that their Objections and 
Answers are to be viewed not as expressing wholly their oicn convictions, but 
rather as an Epitome of all that can best be urged on both sides of the discussion, 



IV 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Lastly, Each Competitor will annex his subscription and address to his Expo- 
sition, which must be lodged on or before the first day of January next, with the 
Subscriber, who shall, within four months thereafter, notify to the successful 
Competitor, his readiness to pay him the said Premium. And for the farther 
encouragement of Competitors, the Subscriber, if requested, shall, as heretofore, 
surrender, upon the most liberal terms, his hereby reserved copyright to the Prize 
Essay ; and the other Essays shall be restored to the respective Essayists, if applied 
for, forthwith. 

GEORGE BAILLIE. 

37, Dalhousie-Street, Garnethill, Glasgow, 
6th May, 1854. 



NOTES EXPLANATORY OF THE ABOVE ADVERTISEMENT. 

The adage "where there is a will there is a way" is so true, that were the 
Advertiser not now old and infirm, he would himself work out the proposed 
Exposition, with a pleasurable perseverance. The whole modus operandi is present 
to his mind, and, for the aid and satisfaction of Competitors, he will here state it 
frankly : — 1st, No pains would be spared in collecting at least half-a-dozen of the 
most powerful works, foreign or otherwise, on each side of the discussion. — 2d, 
With pencil in hand, he would carefully peruse the whole Infidel works ( and none 
else at this stage,) marking every notable clause with an "0/ or an "A.," as it 
seemed fittest for an Objection or an Answer. — 3d, The same operation would fall 
to be performed as to the Christian works, and thus all that would remain to be 
done would be, First, to extract from the Infidel works all clauses marked " 0," 
and reduce them into the fewest possible words, in the shape of distinct Objections 
or Propositions. Second, To extract from the Christian works all clauses marked 
*' A," and reduce them into the fevjest possible words, in the shape of Answers to 
the said Objections ; and, Third, to repeat these two last operations, in the framing 
of Objections by Christianity against Infidelity, and ot Answers thereto by Infidelity. 
Of course, whenever, on either side, an Objection was found to be wholly or partially 
unanswered — or an Answer or Objection less relevant or vigorous than it might fairly 
be made, the Essayist should feel it his right and duty to supply these omissions 
and amend these defects to the best of his ability, but always with strict regard to 
relevancy and brevity — so that the whole Exposition might thus, with comparative 
ease, be rendered clear, consecutive, and condensed. 

The advantages of this mode of procedure are many. 1st, No relevantly 
important matter would be omitted. 2d, The mind of the Essayist would be 
spared the incessant conflict and perplexity incident to any attempt to answer each 
Objection, unico contextu, with the framing of the Objection itself. 3d, Such an 
attempt would have the baneful effect of tempting the Essayist to mould the 
Objection so as to suit its coming Answer, instead of framing the Objection itself 
in its most invulnerable form, as is done by every skilful Debater. 4th, Any unfair 
tinkering of materials would be easily detected by one conversant with both sides 
of the discussion, as he should be, who undertakes to Adjudicate in the case. 
Lastly, By the said sequence of study on one side, before talcing up the other side, the 
whole discussion would become more homogeneous, coherent, and convincing, than it 
could otherwise be. Moreover, the terms of the Advertisement necessarily require 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



V 



each Competitor to "bring to the work, if possible, a zeal and research wholly 
unprejudiced /' and, indeed, any undue partiality on either side, would soon betray 
itself, by the very juxtaposition of each Objection and its Answer — wherein consists 
the main excellence of the proposed Exposition. 

Here it may be proper to remark, as to the importance of brevity, that now-a- 
days, most men have so many pressing demands upon their time and attention, 
that a Big Book is a Big Bore in common parlance. Brevity once called the soul 
of wit, is now the soul of most mental productions. The multum in parvo alone 
pleases, especially in theological effusions, which otherwise are looked upon by 
many as mere lumber. And these considerations are here adduced, because the 
Advertiser knows how much easier it is to be diffuse than dense in style. We 
are told of a Lady, who excused herself to her Correspondent, for sending a long 
Epistle, as she had not time to write a short one. Men must now make Books as 
Bakers make Currant Bun in Scotland — cram much fruit into small space. A 
French Cook is said to have concentrated the essence of a whole Ox into a single 
cup of soup, and however that may be, we all know that in dexterous hands, the 
literary pruning-knife can perform wonders. For instance, " The Statistical 
Account of Scotland" in 21 volumes, was compressed into One Volume, by Sir 
John Sinclair, Bart., and critics pronounced it " an accurate and valuable 
Epitome," as was proved by its instantaneous popidarity among all classes. 

The prefixed Advertisement may create some slight sensation, and at all events 
it is hoped it will induce not a few Christians and Infidels to stand forth and give 
battle to their most formidable antagonists in Theology, foreign and domestic. 
If well followed up it must conduce to bring our Grand Religious Controversy 
to a fair stand-up, face-to-face, foot-to-foot Exposition, well suited to the uneducated 
mind — spare time and sparer purse of the humble artizan — especially if published 
in a brief, cheap, and popular shape. At all events, the Scheme, whatever be its 
merits or demerits, originates with the Advertiser, and is believed to be quite new. 
He humbly thinks that if it be executed with thorough talent — stern impartiality, 
and rigorous research, it must become both popular and profitable — because it 
cannot fail to be a useful publication to the masses — who have neither time to 
peruse — nor money to purchase — nor capacity to comprehend, the pondrous, expen- 
sive, and multifarious lucubrations over which the Controversy is at present 
scattered. Hence they have generally hitherto taken their Creeds, like their 
Clothes, upon credit, without being able to give a right reason for their Belief or 
Unbelief. But now this Blind-Buff Game is unfit for a Class no longer in nonage. 

To save Competitors unnecessary trouble, the Advertiser will dispense with 
much debate as to God's existence. What God is — not that God is, — seems almost 
all that is necessary to consider here, on that branch of the discussion — because, 
it would imply insanity to affirm God's non-existence in every sense of the word 
" God." Pantheism, Materialism, and Spinosaism, are called, or rather miscalled 
Atheistical, though they recognise in God the " .4^-in-^l^," and are therefore 
Theistical in the most extensive sense. These Doctrines, however, involve the 
inquiry, " What God is ?" and of course they must take their fair share in the 
Exposition. Some years ago, the Advertiser endeavoured to refute Materialism, 
syllogistically, and Mr. Holyoake in his " Beasoner, No. 118, 30th August, 1848," 
endeavoured to answer the Essay ; but it is believed that the Public, generally, 



VI 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



thought his Answer inefficient, and therefore, a Reply thereto, though written, 
was not published. The subject is, however, so mysterious, that it is difficult to 
treat it satisfactorily ; and, as it is known, that Materialism is au fond, the Faith 
of many educated persons both at home and abroad, it will, perhaps, take some 
small share in the ensuing Exposition, although not a few deem it — apart from 
Scripture — a subject almost wholly beyond human logic, because, none but a God 
can adequately comprehend a God. 

How strange and sorrowful it is, therefore, that our controversies, on a theme 
the most profound and sublime that Man can enter upon, have almost always been 
hitherto conducted in a way quite irrational, intemperate, and sectarian, or one- 
sided. Out comes a partizan who vamps up volumes of panegyric on his own pet 
convictions, and of contumely on all who dare to doubt his spiritual nostrums. 
The latter, thus exasperated, shower upon their assailant in turn, an equal pro- 
fusion of personal invective and idle declamation. All the while, neither party 
controvert explicitly the facts, arguments, and objections of their opponents ; and 
thus the theological conflict becomes more and more unsatisfactory and repulsive 
to all considerate men. It is, therefore, high time now, that the Examination and 
Exposition of true Religion be rescued from treatment so disreputable and 
unconvincing. 

Fortunately, Courts of Judicature exhibit modes of investigation and decision, 
obviously as adequate to the solution of our Theological problem as they have 
ever been, in past ages, to the solution of questions the most momentous to Man's 
Life, Fortune, and Character here below. — Our Tribunals of Justice very properly 
oblige parties to controvert explicitly, and in their order, each and every fact, 
argument, and objection, urged by their opponents, under pain of being held as 
confessing the truth of whatever they do not specially deny. It is with a view to 
that judicious mode of judicial expiscation, that the prefixed Advertisement is 
framed; and, if its Rules be but vigorously and honestly worked out, it seems likely 
to tend more than any course hitherto adopted, to strip the Religious Question of 
those interminable irrelevancies, evasions, and rhetorical ramblings, under which 
it has hitherto been hidden by a heartless and crafty casuistry. Thus, pure and 
undefiled Religion will be tested, and recognised by practical principles which our 
most eminent Jurists and Judges daily enforce and acknowledge as the best 
Explorers of Justice and Truth — that truth which fears nothing — scorns evasion 
— repudiates artifice, and courts the closest scrutiny — because, like Gold, its purity 
will prove itself the purer the more severely it is tested. 

Finally, — This ardent effort to unveil truth, and unmask untruth, by placing 
them vis-d-vis, seems to have the high sanction of England's mightiest Minstrel, 
who thus quaintly expresses himself : — 

" In logic, contraries laid together more evidently appear : it 
follows, then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will 
appear more false, and truth more true ; which must needs conduce 
to the confirmation of an implicit truth." — Milton. 

G. B. 



PREFACE. 



Throughout the following Epitome, the principle has been to adhere 
strictly to the idea of Revelation as a miraculous dispensation : i.e., a 
special interference, on the part of a personal Deity, with the general 
order of things, usually described as being subject to the Laws of Nature. 
Hence no notice is taken of those explanations of Christianity, — forming, 
perhaps, the most generally attractive portion of the religious literature of 
the day, — which, while retaining the terms of supranaturalism, explain 
it away into a simple accordance with natural reason and science ; either 
plainly so discoverable to this cultivated age, or to be inferred as probably 
such in the plan of Omniscience, though at present concealed from our 
limited faculties : thus reducing Christianity in fact to the level of common 
events, and leaving no real ground of contention between the mere natural 
philosopher, as such, and the believer in Revelation. 

This principle has been the guide in the selection of the following course 
of Argument ; which, accordingly, represents, not a history of the con- 
troversy, but such a view of it as, in the judgment of the Compiler, gives 
a fair and consistent statement of the general question, without entering 
upon minor sectarian differences. The extracts selected are thus merely 
such as seemed the best procurable to set forth the point in hand, without 
regard being had to the great discrepancies of opinion amongst the various 
Authors ; some of whom are, consequently, not at all fairly represented as 
to their general opinions by these partial quotations. For their bearing 
upon the argument the Compiler is responsible ; but the real meaning of the 
Author, as far as each passage is concerned, has, nevertheless, been always 
endeavoured to be preserved. In many cases the language has been freely 
condensed, but it has never been altered ; not a single word of any differ- 
ent shade of meaning, has been substituted within a quotation ; and in 



VIII PREFACE. 

passages where the style was expressive of feeling, and in some measure 
itself an argument, every word has been scrupulously retained. 

In the attempt to fill up the scheme, — imperfect as it is, — the Compiler 
confesses to have been frustrated by the total inability to find Answers 
fairly corresponding to many of the Objections — so much easier of state- 
ment. This has been felt especially under the head of the Internal Evi- 
dence of Christianity, where the so-called Answers are accordingly offered 
with reluctance, as, for the most part, neither meeting the question, nor 
affording parallel trains of thought. 

It is, indeed, in the light of parallel representations that this Com- 
pilation is wished to be regarded ; not at all as actuated by the spirit of 
controversy, but as a simple juxta-position of both sides of the question 
that may help towards a fair balance. Thus considered, it is hoped that 
the positive form of laying down opinions on subjects so important, will 
not be attributed to dogmatism or presumption. The cases are only 
pleaded ; preparatory to the judgment that is yet in abeyance, and has to 
be pronounced by the reader. Or rather, it is desired merely to furnish, 
in brief, suggestive specimens of a line of argument, — which, ranging over 
so vast and various a field, can be but the slightest sketch, — to be filled up 
and altered in the reader's own mind. Its deficiencies may thus have the 
truly best effect, of stimulating him to work out a more satisfactory train 
of reasoning for himself. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I . 

OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. 

AGAINST REVELATION IN GENERAL : 

THAT IT IS DEROGATORY TO THE IDEA OF GOD. 

PAGE. 



I. The idea of the God of Revelation is incongruous with that of 

the Author of Nature 2 

II. The God of Revelation is not all-wise, or not omnipotent 2 

III. He is partial in his benevolence 4 

IV. Revelation bears marks of instability and caprice 4 

THAT IT CANNOT BE INFERRED, A PRIORI, FROM OUR EXPE- 
RIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE, TO BE GOOD FOR MAN. 

V. Man learns best by experience 6 

VI. And should be supposed capable of learning all that is necessary 

for him *. 6 

VII. The tendency of Revelation is to check human improvement ... 8 

ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTESTING IT. 

VIII. Miracles are necessary as evidence, but their value changes with 

the state of science 8 

IX. Moral evidence is insufficient 10 

X. Spiritual evidence cannot be imparted » 10 

ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFICULTY OF RECORDING IT. 

XI. Record by tradition, is vague and perishing; and by writing, is 

exposed to human errors 10 

AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : 

THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT SUPPORTED BY EXTERNAL 
EVIDENCE. 

XII. The Bible is a heterogeneous compilation; 12 

XIII. Subject to many critical alterations 12 

XIV. The canon of the New Testament was long unsettled ; contains 

disputed books ; the authenticity of the books in general is 

ill supported by early tradition 14 

XV. The names of the authors of the Gospels are conjectural 16 

XVI. Their dates are uncertain ; and fixed by theological bias 18 

XVII. No special care of Providence was manifested in the preservation 

of them 18 

THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT SUPPORTED BY INTERNAL 
EVIDENCE. 

XVIII. The Bible is difficult to understand; 20 

XIX. Requiring much learning 20 

XX. The books of the New Testament are not uniform in doctrine... 22 

XXI. They have the mythic legends common to old eastern religions... 24 



X 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



XXII. The accounts of Jesus are incomplete, and not like those of eye- 
witnesses 26 

XXIII. There is artistic design apparent in the Evangelists 28 

XXIV. Their relations of Miracles have not the air of trustworthiness .. 36 
XXV. As is seen in their accounts of the Eesurrection 38 

XXVI. The Morality of the Gospels is not altogether philosophically true : 
trust in God ; prayer ; forgiveness of sins ; demand of inward 

purity (borrowed from the Essenes). 44 

XXVII. The doctrine of Atonement is altogether contrary to natural mo- 
rality 50 

XXVIII. The character of Christ is not a model for us 52 

XXIX. Christianity is a revelation of Immortality only to rude minds... 54 

XXX. Christianity was fitted for its own age, not for all ages : in its 

doctrines; in its miracles; and in its morality. .„ 56 

XXXI. It is responsible for Judaism 60 

XXXII. The true worth of Christianity is not known till it is recognized 

as natural 62 

AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN' REVELATION, AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY : 

THAT IT IS DEFICIENT IN TESTIMONY FROM JEWISH AND HEATHEN 
HISTORIANS. 

XXXIII. It made no peculiar impression upon the world at the time 64 

THAT THE FACTS IN EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY CAN BE AC- 
COUNTED FOR IN A NATURAL WAY. 

XXXIV. Historical circumstances indicate a political as well as a religious 

movement on the part of Jesus ; 66 

XXXV. "Which was subsequently spiritualized, and adapted to the con- 
dition of the Gentiles ,. 70 

XXXVI. The course of other religions had prepared the way for Christianity 74 

THAT ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SUBSEQUENT COURSE OF EVENTS 
HAS NOT BEEN OTHER THAN NATURAL. 

XXXVII. It has wrought no great and sudden changes on bodies of men 76 
XXXVIII. It was itself subject to outward influences 76 

XXXIX. It was propagated on. a large scale by the sword 78 

XL. It was not the influence that raised Woman 78 

XLI. It has not been the means of abolishing slavery 80 

XLII. It has encouraged coarse superstitions, and persecuting in- 
tolerance 82 

THAT ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS AT THE PRESENT DAY, ARE IN- 
COMMENSURATE WITH ITS CLAIM. 

XLIII. The present age is notoriously accused of Infidelity 82 

XLIV. Christianity lags behind the age, and is an obstruction to im- 
provement 84 

XLV. Infidelity abounds especially amongst the working classes 86 

XLVI. The divisions in the Churches are signs of their decay 88 

XLVII. Christianity shows itself deficient in its moral condition, and 

in its practical influence 92 

XLVIII. Summary , 96 



PART II. 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. 

THAT IT IS INDUCED BY A SPIRIT OF PRIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY. 

PAGE. 

I. Difficulties are admitted, by Christians, but accepted as a trial 

of humility 98 

II. The Infidel resents them as an insult of his Reason 100 

III. Pride of Reason is not far from Pride of one's Own Reason ... 104 

IV. Otherwise Unbelief would content itself with Silence 106 

THAT IT IS INDUCED BY THE DESIRE TO ESCAPE FROM MORAL 
RESTRAINT. 

V. It refuses an Authoritative Law of Morality 106 

VI, And much more the Christian Law, which demands subjugation 

of the entire nature 110 

VII. Without religion man's sensual nature gains predominance 112 

VIII. Hence lax notions about Marriage 114 

IX. Infidelity leads to wild Social projects 114 

X. It gives up all idea of Moral Responsibility 116 

THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 
LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN A MORAL 
GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD. 

XI. The moral need of man demanded Revelation 118 

XII. Moral difficulties in Nature are as great as in Revelation. The 

Christian and the Atheist are alone consistent 118 

XIII. The principle of Justice is not apparent throughout the admi- 

nistration of the world 122 

XIV. To believe in future compensation because necessary to Divine 

Goodness, is false ground 126 

XV. From Nature Alone, God cannot be proved to be Good .. 128 

XVI. The permission of evil is as inexplicable as the command of it 130 

XVII. The doctrine of the " Fall of Man" is the best clue to the 

mystery 134 

THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 
LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN THE 
IMMORTALITY OF MAN, 

XVIII. There is not ground for supposing the present to be a scene of 

Probation 138 

XIX. As an explanatory Hypothesis, a Future Life is not satisfactory 

enough to maintain itself 140 

XX. There is no proof of Immortality in the material world, or in v 

natural human experience 140 

XXI. Nor in the nature of the Soul 142 

XXII. Men's instincts upon it are too various to establish it 144 

XXIII. The Ancients had a very vague notion of it 146 

XXIV. Considered as a Reward of Virtue, it encourages interested mo- 

tives ; not when considered as a Gift of God 148 

XXV. It is the most animating of human motives 152 



XII 



CONTENTS. 



THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 
LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN THE EX- 
ISTENCE OF GOD. 

XXVI. A God not communicating himself, is no God to us 152 

XXVII. Men have failed to discover him by Philosophy, or by Intuition. 154 
XXVIII. His existence is not to be proved by the argument from Design. 156 

XXIX. Modern Theism is but degenerate Christianity 160 

XXX. Infidelity naturally leads to universal Scepticism : 162 

XXXI. Or to positive Atheism 162 

XXXII. Nature and Eeason show us, that we ought to believe, as we 

act, on Probabilities 164 

XXXIII. Without belief in God, man sinks towards a level with the con- 
dition of brutes 168 



Note to the Reader. It is recommended to read first the Objections of an 
entire Section consecutively, and then refer to them separately in connection 
with the Answers. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, 



AND 



CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. 



PART I. 

INFIDELITY AGAINST CHEISTIANITY. 



OBJECTIONS, ON THE PART OF INFIDELITY, 

AGAINST RE VELA 
THAT IT IS DEROGATORY 

I. THE idea of Revelation necessarily presupposes a 

The idea of Deity, an intelligent Being, who has certain designs 
the God of Revo- -with regard to man. This Being also cannot be thought 
ouTwith^hafof of se P aratel y from tne Author of Nature. But aU the 
the Author of Na- operations of Nature are more and more discovered to 
ture- be in a regular series of sequences, which seem best 

described as fixed laivs ; whereas Revelation supposes an exceptional 
interference in human affairs on the part of God : and hence, at the 
outset, springs an inherent incongruity in the idea we can form of 
God, and his mode of working. 



II. The study of Nature also more and more makes us 

It makes him associate the idea of wisdom and power with uniformity 
not all-wise, or of plan, producing effects infinitely varied in kind and 
not omnipotent. degree by one and the same mode of operation ; which 
is in contradiction with the notion that Divine personal intervention was 
necessary for man, though not required for the lower animals, with 
whom he is in close relationship as regards his physical constitution. 

But if we set aside this extreme view, and admit the opinion hitherto 
almost universally adopted, that God willed man to be of an essentially 
different nature from other creatures, still the need of a Revelation for 
him seems to imply some inefficiency in the act of his creation. If we 
suppose that man was endowed with an independent, godlike power of 
his own, in the place of those instinctive impulses which serve for the 
guidance of inferior animals, and that being thus capable of resisting 
God, he did actually rebel against him, so that a Revelation became 
necessary to restore him : then it follows that God either did not fore- 
see, or was not willing, or not able to prevent man's rebellion. It 
may be said that the purpose of God to make man a free agent — a bene- 
volent purpose, because productive of the greatest amount of good on 
the whole, — involved the necessity for this rebellion, sin and misery : 
but it must be acknowledged that then God cannot carry on his designs 
as he would, but is thwarted by man ; and Revelation becomes a mere 
compulsory expedient to meet the exigencies of the case. 



PART L 



INFIDELITY AGAINST CHEISTIANITY. 



ANSWERS, ON THE PART OF CHRISTIANITY. 

TION IN" GENERAL : 
TO THE IDEA OF GOD. 

I. OUR faculties are too limited to judge respecting the Divine Being. 
"What seems inconsistency to our narrow comprehension, would doubt- 
less resolve itself into perfect harmony if we knew the whole — if we could 
see as God sees. What appear to us respectively as fixed law and per- 
sonal intervention of God, may in reality have no such distinction in 
their nature ; since the seeming mechanical course of nature must yet be 
under the constant sway of His arbitrary Will, and can be fixed only 
in so far as His pleasure remains fixed. 

"If we leave out the consideration of Religion, we are in such 
total darkness, upon what causes, occasions, reasons, or circumstances, 
the present course of nature depends ; that there does not appear any im- 
probability for or against supposing, that 5 or 6,000 years may have 
given scope for causes . . . from whence miraculous interpositions may 
have arisen . . . But, take in the consideration of Religion, or the 
moral system of the world, and then we see distinct particular reasons 
for miracles : to afford mankind instruction additional to that of nature, 
and to attest the truth of it. And this gives a real credibility to the 
supposition, that it might be part of the original plan of things, that 
there should be miraculous interpositions."* 

II. All the rest of creation belong to earth, and are doomed to perish ; 
man alone is made in the image of God, and destined for immortality : 
it is therefore natural that, while other beings are left to the mechanical 
agency of laws once set in action and then abandoned to work out their 
given ends, for man there should be reserved a more immediate com- 
munication with his Maker. f 

Every created being is necessarily imperfect and liable to go astray. 

* Butler's Analogy of Religion, Mural and Revealed, to the constitution and 
course of Nature. Part ii., ch. ii. § iii. Ed : 1839, p. 186. 

*f* " If the Supreme Being proposed only such ends as mechanism can produce, 
then he might have framed a machinery so perfect and sure as to need no sus- 
pension of its ordinary movements. But he has an incomparably nobler end. His 
great purpose is to educate, to rescue from evil, to carry forward for ever the 
free, rational mind or soul . . . the chief distinction of intelligent beings is 
Moral Freedom. This capacity, at once the most glorious and the most fearful 
which we can conceive, shows how the human race may have come into a condi- 
tion to which the illumination of nature was inadequate."— Channing's Works, in 
one volume : 1840. p. 416. 



4 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[revelation in gene- 



III. If it was the benevolence of God which induced 

Partial in his him to give the revelation that was indispensable for 
benevolence. the salvation of man : yet this benevolence is not such 
as would seem to befit the Father of all his creatures, when it is 
limited to a favoured few, as every Revelation must be in the first in- 
stance. That all mankind should be so framed as not to be able of 
themselves to accomplish their own well-being, and yet that the Divine 
aid of Revelation should be reserved only for a portion of them, seems 
irreconcilable with the moral attributes of Deity. 

IV. Revelation thus comes as an after-thought, to sup- 

Revelation bears J&J sonie original deficiency in creation ; as if some un- 
marks of instabi- foreseen difficulty had occurred which must be met 
hty and caprice. extraordinary provision. It breaks in upon the 

grand simplicity of the organization of Nature, and seems to withdraw 
man from the dominion of everlasting and certain order which regulates 
the motions of the spheres, to a realm of caprice and instability. In the 
investigation of the Universe, here first reason finds itself in the pre- 
sence of an arbitrary Being, whose proceedings not merely transcend but 
contradict its own best apprehensions. 



ANSWERS OP CHRISTIANITY, 



•5 



BAL. — IDEA OP GOD.] 

This liability indeed implies some power antagonistic to good, i.e. to God, 
whether it be in the nature of matter, or in some spiritual principle 
of evil : and herein lies the dark mystery of the Origin of Evil, the 
"great and perplexing question" for which no solution has yet been 
found.* Lord Brougham says: "The whole argument respecting evil 
must, from the nature of the question, resolve itself into either a proof 
of some absolute or mathematical necessity not to be removed by infinite 
power, or the showing that some such proof may be possible, although 
we have not yet discovered it."f 

That God should give a Revelation because the stubbornness of man's 
nature made his salvation otherwise impossible, is all the more a proof 
of the greatness of the Divine love towards him. 

III. "Why it was that the Most High thought fit to make a reve- 
lation to one people, and not at once to all the world, we cannot ex- 
plain, and we must not presume to decide : . . . nor yet why many 
nations, in various parts of the world, have been left, even to this day, 
in the darkness of idolatrous superstition ; or, indeed, why any such 
thing as evil should exist at all. All this, we may conclude, would 
have been explained to us in Scripture, if it had been necessary for us 
to understand it. As it is, any attempt to explain these things is fruit- 
less and presumptuous. "J 

IY. Though reason may satisfy itself with finding mere Power and 
Intelligence, an emotionless Lawgiver, in the Governor of the Universe, 
yet the heart will acknowledge its need of a Being capable of Love, 
which makes election, and is not bound by Law. A voice from the 
inner depths of man's nature will make itself heard, telling that a God, 
good and loving, cannot hold himself aloof from immediate personal com- 
munication with his creatures. A God apart from men, ruling only by 
fixed laws, is like the chilling Fate of heathen mythology, and not the 
God that the religious heart seeks after and feels with innate conviction 
to be the true object of its worship. 

"To the sceptic, no principle is so important as the uniformity of 
nature, the constancy of its laws. To me, there is a vastly higher truth, 
to which miracles bear witness, and to which I welcome their aid. What 
I wish chiefly to know is, that Mind is the supreme power in the uni- 
verse ; that matter is its instrument and slave ; that there is a Will to 
which nature can offer no obstruction ; that God is unshackled by the 
laws of the universe, and controls them at his pleasure. This absolute 
sovereignty of the Divine Mind over the universe, is the only foundation 
of hope for the triumph of the human mind over matter, over physical 
influences, over imperfection and death. 

* See Archbishop Whately's Essays on some of the peculiarities of the Christian 
Religion. 5th Ed., 1846, pp. 68, 69. 
f Dissertations in Illustration of Paley's Natural Theology. 1839. Vol. ii., p. 78. 
X Encyclopcedia Britannica. 8th Ed. Whately's Third Preliminary Disserts 
tion, p. 168. See Butler's A nalogy. Partii., ch. vi. 
$ Channing's Works, p. 115. Evidences of Christianity . Part ii. 



6 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY, 



AGAINST REVELA- 

THAT IT CANNOT BE INFERRED, A PRIORI, FROM OUR EX- 

V. Turning from consideration of the view of the Divine character 
as affected by Revelation, to observation of human nature, we find here 
also inherent objection against it. As it did not seem fitting for Deity 
to grant, so neither does it seem fitting for man to receive. 

We see that in all matters of worldly concern the 
Man learns best best knowledge he has is that gained by experience; 

by experience. w j ia ^ -^q has found out for himself is of more value 

than all that is taught to him : and there is no natural reason why the 
•attainment of religion should follow a different rule. On the contrary, 
it would seem especially that religion is a kind of learning that must 
grow out of the mind, and cannot be put into it; as we find that the 
higher is the knowledge we seek, the more it requires, even if nob 
actually originated, but suggested by another, yet to be adopted and 
assimilated by spontaneous effort. A mere statement of facts, out- 
wardly impressed upon a man, is nothing to him till his nature is in- 
ternally stirred so as to be vitally acted upon by it, and all the pow- 
ers of his mind have had their share in the examination and reception 
of it ; and much more in what relates to morality, the learning of verbal 
precepts is nothing without the accompanying emotion of the heart and 
conscience. And the greater the authority with which outward instruc- 
tion either of the heart or mind is given, the less is the internal and 
only real vital action regarding it. So that, most of all, instruction 
direct from God, would have the effect of stopping the action of our 
own minds, and would therefore be least really beneficial to us. 



VI. Paley and most defenders of Revelation, begin by 

He should be assuming that it is good for man. But setting aside 
o^ P iTarning Pa aii a ^ tneo l°§^ ca l prepossessions, the presumption is that 
that is necessary the knowledge man is fitted to attain is all that is ne- 
for him. cessary for him. It is always some notion of the fallen 

state of man, and the Devil having spoilt the original work of God, 
that makes him supposed unable to do without it. On the simple ground 
of reason and experience it is to be inferred that the exertion of the 
powers with which he is furnished is sufficient to accomplish the end 
of his being. The prime doctrines that Revelation must be supposed to 
teach are, that there is a God, and a future life of retribution. But if 
these cannot be discovered by the natural faculties, the presumption is 
that they are not necessary to be known, or not until the faculties are 
so grown as to be able to discover them. And in fact the same facul- 
ties in kind though not in degree, are required to comprehend as to dis- 
cover ; so that, unless they already exist in the mind, waiting for growth 
and development, revelation is a nullity to it. We can see how much 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



7 



TION IN GENERAL: 

PERIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE, TO BE GOOD FOR MAN. 

V. Certainly learning by experience is the most effectual method 
in all worldly matters ; and it engenders that independence of spirit 
and manly energy, which fit him to contend with the difficulties of life, 
and the rivalship and opposing interests of his fellow-men. It makes a 
man feel his own strength. But this very tendency shows that it is not 
adapted to religion, which requires a quite opposite frame of mind. A 
lowly submission, a humble waiting for the Divine teaching, is the 
proper condition of the soul when it looks towards God. 

" For what end has God ordained, as the chief means of human 
improvement, the communication of light from superior to inferior minds ? 
It is rational to believe, that the Creator designs to bind his creatures 
to Himself as truly as to one another, and to awaken towards himself 
even stronger gratitude, confidence, and love ; for these sentiments to- 
wards God are more happy and ennobling than towards any other being ; 
and it is plain that revelation, or immediate divine teaching, serves as 
effectually to establish these ties between God and man, as human 
teaching to attach men to one another. We see, then, in revelation 
an end corresponding to what the Supreme Being adopts in his common 
providence. . . . There is plainly an expression of deeper concern, a 
more affectionate character, in this mode of instruction, than in teach- 
ing us by the fixed order of nature. Revelation is God speaking to 
us in our own language, in the accents which human friendship em- 
ploys. It shows a love, breaking through the reserve and distance, 
which we all feel to belong to the method of teaching us by his works 
alone. . . . Instruction in regard to Futurity is the great means of 
improvement. That God should give us light as to a Future state, 
if he design it for us, is what we should expect from his solicitude. 
Nature thirsts for, and analogy almost promises, some illumination on 
the subject of human destiny. . . . There are in the human soul 
wants, deep wants, which are not met by the influences and teachings, 
which the ordinary course of things affords. ... in proportion as 
these convictions and wants become distinct, they break out in desires 
of illumination and aids from God not found in nature."* 

"Within the circle of our own being, our search after that meet pro- 
vision for the nourishment of man's religious powers and sensibilities 
which the general laws of the Divine economy warrant us in expecting, 
cannot terminate satisfactorily. To the intellect God has revealed him- 
self through the medium of Nature. . . . But those works of his in 
the physical universe do not satisfy all the deep yearnings of our nature. 
Our moral constitution craves a moral manifestation of Deity, — to know 
him in his relation to conscience. And this want of ours is his hand- 
writing on our nature, to the effect that such a revelation of himself 
may be looked for, and will be vouchsafed. "f 



* Channing's Evidences of Christianity. Part I. pp. 401, 402. 
t Bases of Belief. By Edward Miall. 1853. pp. 97, 160. 



s 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[revelation in gene- 

more healthful an exercise it is for the mind to ponder upon these 
subjects and work out its own results, and how much more genuine 
will be the faith which it thus attains, than if the doctrines were given 
as imperative dicta that admitted of nothing but a purely passive ac- 
ceptation. 

VII. Revealed truth requires a child-like mind for its 
The tendency reception, and the effect of Revelation is to keep man- 
to check & humaa ^ n( ^ * n ^ e condition of childhood : preventing them 
improvement. from ever learning for themselves those things which 
most of all concern them, and making them always contented with a 
mere external knowledge, or rather a nattering pretence of knowledge. 
All miraculous action is external. 

It would appear, therefore, a priori, that Revelation must have a 
tendency to hinder the progress of human improvement : 

By checking the exercise of man's own faculties upon the 
most important points ; 

By making him believe that he really knows what he merely 
echoes because it is told him ; 

By making him think that what his own faculties acquire 
for him, is something inferior, and to be despised ; 

And therefore by placing him in a false, unnatural state of 
mind, between the conflicting claims of what he is made to consider 
Divine, and what is merely human knowledge. 

AGAINST REVELA- 
ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIF- 

VIII. Revelation, which is essentially miraculous in its na- 
Miracies are ne- ture, must attest itself by miracle. If God holds a super- 

cessary as evi- natural communication with men, his direct presence must 
dence, but their manifest -itself by supernatural tokens. It would be 

value changes 1 

with the state of strange and unaccountable if such were wanting. Accord- 
science, ingly "we find that every religion has rested its claim 
upon signs and wonders ; and the ruder the age, the more grossly phy- 
sical have been the marvels by which it has been accompanied. Moses 
received the Law on tables of stone direct from heaven, inscribed by 
the finger of God himself ; as the image of Pallas, which was the symbol 
of salvation to Greece, came down from Jupiter ; and the very voice 
of God was heard at the baptism of Jesus, announcing his beloved Son. 

But the weight which is attached to physical miracles changes with 

the state of science. Those marvels which were easily believed in times 
of ignorance, can be received upon no amount of evidence in an en- 
lightened age ; and on the other hand, what seemed stupendous wonders 
then, are now seen to be mere natural events. In barbarous times a 
gunpowder explosion would seem better proof of the presence of Deity, 
than that the sun should stand still. Miracles which awe one genera- 
tion, are imitated by jugglers in another. Their value as evidence is 
fluctuating, and would base the faith of mankind upon a sliding scale. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



9 



RAL. — NOT GOOD FOR MAN.] 

VI. The generality of Christian writers maintain that man is unable 
by his own unaided powers to attain to the knowledge of God and of a 
future life ;* but all agree that these doctrines are essential elements of 
the education of the human race. Without a belief in these, man be- 
longs only to this lower world. He wants those spiritual and elevating 
tendencies which only can raise him above temporal and material things ; 
and to kindle these God has reserved to the immediate working of His 
own Spirit. By nature, man is fitted for earth ; here he is endowed with 
sufficient faculties to serve him, and he is under the injunction to use 
and to improve them : but to learn of heavenly things he must have a 
heavenly instructor. 

By the natural man the infinite importance of belief in these and 
concomitant doctrines is not comprehended. He only considers their 
temporal effects, and summarily concludes that man can do very well 
without them, or wait for ages while generation after generation passes 
away till perchance they may be discovered ! It is well for man, that 
the mercies of God are more speedy to help, than his creatures to feel 
their need ! 

VII. To remain in a child-like frame towards the Heavenly Father, is 
the best possible condition for the spirit of man. No intellectual attain- 
ments, or growth of enlightenment, or even moral strength, can make 
up for the want of that temper most becoming to mortal men, a reli- 
gious docility. 

TION IN GENERAL : 
FICULTY OF ATTESTING IT. 

VIII. This is generally assented to. Paley says: "Now in what 
way can a revelation be made, but by miracles ? In none which we 
can conceive."f The advocates of Christianity undertake to prove that 
the miracles recorded as such in the New Testament, were really "out 
of the ordinary course of nature, beyond the unassisted power of nian." J 
It is true that some wonderful actions, which seemed miraculous at the 
time, may be afterwards discovered to be capable of performance in a 
natural manner in an advanced age of science ; but it still has claim 
to be considered a miracle, that the original actor, who did them in 
ignorance of science, should have forestalled the discovery of after 
times, and performed those wonders, not by happy accident, but with 
full assurance and deliberate, expressed intention, and in repeated in- 
stances ; and that this power should be possessed not by one person 
only, but conveyed by him to many others. 

And the effect of such wonderful works, which are not properly part 
of the Revelation itself, but accompanying incidents, is to draw attention 



* See Part II. 

+ Evidences of Christianity. Preparatory Considerations. See "Whately's Preli- 
minary Dissertation, in En. Britt., p. 499. 
X Wkately's Introductory Lessons on Christian Evidences, Eel. 12, p. 31. 



10 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[revelation in general. — 

IX. As men advance by the cultivation of science in 

Moral evidence their acquaintance with nature, and discover how har- 
ia insufficient. monious and beneficent is the regularity of her working, 
physical miracles fall more and more into discredit ; and it becomes 
the ordinary course to attribute the miracles to the department of mind, 
which is not yet seen to be also subject to fixed laws. The miraculous 
attestation to revelation is now supposed to consist in (1st) the proclaim- 
ing of moral truths, either not discoverable by human faculties, or be- 
yond the present attainments of man : which, therefore, it must be 
objected, would be inappreciable by him, or premature to his condition, 
and consequently harmful rather than beneficial ; and which would also, 
for that reason, seem to him untrue, and be necessarily unavailing to 
convince him of their divine origin. The efficiency of moral truth as a 
test of revelation depends upon the moral condition in which it is 
received, and is uncertain and fluctuating accordingly. 



X. Or (2d) the spiritual attestation may consist in a 

Spiritual evi- sudden and vivid religious impression, for which no 
dence cannot be natural cause is perceived ; which produces an instanta- 
imparted. neous and apparently irresistible conviction, and some- 

times throws the whole mind into a new state. The converted soul 
has found that which meets its secret, hitherto unsatisfied want, and it 
can only feel that it must be supplied immediately from the Father of 
spirits. But this internal conviction is one that can be only felt, not 
reasoned on : a man can never prove to himself, much less to others, 
that it does not proceed from an idiosyncracy of his own nature, or 
from an over-weening confidence in his own impressions. If this strong 
self-confidence is a test of Divine revelation, it is one that is always 
liable to be taken for self-delusion. 

AGAINST REVELA- 
ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFI- 

XI. Supposing that a Revelation has been proclaimed by the lips 
of men attesting their divine authority in a manner satisfactory to their 
present hearers : yet the difficulty of recording it for the benefit of dis- 
tant times and places, presents objections that appear insuperable. 

The memory of sacred events may be presented either by oral tra- 
dition, or in writing. 

Record by tra- nrs * me ^hod is so ^oo&e and vague that nothing 

dition is vague but the most simple facts can be supposed to be faith- 
and perishing ; fully handed down by it ; and even these beopme quite 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



11 



DIFFICULTY OF ATTESTING IT.] 

to it in a striking manner. It may be represented thus : that the great 
miracle of Divine interference, of His peculiar Presence amongst men, 
exalts all their faculties, suddenly heightens them to an amazing 
degree, so that, as it were by involuntary, uncontrollable flashes, they 
are raised beyond themselves and beyond their age, and perform deeds 
which, though not properly miraculous, are the effect of miracle, and the 
immediate mode of manifesting it. 

IX. The proclaiming of moral truths is rather a corroboration than a 
direct proof of a Divine Revelation. If the promulgators of it are not 
only teachers of the strictest virtue, but are themselves patterns of the 
practice of it, certainly these are credentials to be expected in the mes- 
sengers of heaven, and inconsistent with the character of impostors. 
That men of extraordinary virtue should be the victims of self-delusion 
is not impossible, but in the highest degree improbable. 

To show a degree of moral insight more pure and enlightened than 
belongs to the age and nation, cannot be strictly taken as evidence of 
supernatural endowment ; but it affords a powerful inducement to believe 
in it. 

X. The conversion of the soul can be effected by the grace of God 
alone, and this is the true and proper evidence of Divine Revelation. 
Assent to outward facts is nothing ; the subjugation of the understand- 
ing by miraculous portents is in itself of no avail, but a mere prepara- 
tion for that vital belief which the Spirit of God only can inspire, and 
which once effected, all inferior proof is no longer needed. True, this 
blessed faith cannot be communicated : but the spectacle of the fruits 
of regeneration is the strongest testimony that can be afforded to the 
power of the living Word. And when this regeneration takes place not 
in one man, but in thousands, when whole bodies of men are moved 
simultaneously by the same holy influence, it is no longer possible to 
be referred to individual idiosyncracy, but must be recognised as the 
mighty working of God. 

TION IN GENERAL : 
CULTY OF RECORDING IT. 

XI. "If any should say, * How great an advantage the people who 
lived in those days, and saw miracles performed before their eyes, must 
have had over us, who only read of them in ancient books ; and how can 
men in these days be expected to believe as firmly as they did?' — you 
may answer, that different men's trials and advantages are pretty nearly 
balanced. The people who lived in those times were not (any more than 
ourselves) forced into belief whether they would or no ; but were left 
to exercise candour in judging fairly from the evidence before them. 
Those of them who were resolved to yield to their prejudices against 



12 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[revelation in general. — 
unreliable as soon as the lapse of time has brought us out of reach of 
the original circumstances in which they sprung. Thus, respecting the 
early legend that Hercules destroyed monsters in Greece, we can only 
form conjecture as to whether it was a pure myth, or whether it had 
its rise in any historic fact. 

by writing, is ex- An(i if tne account be preserved in writing, it is ex- 
posed to human posed to human error at every step : — to a want of 
errors - intellectual comprehension, or moral integrity, or lite- 

rary capacity, in the sacred penman j to involuntary mistake, as well 
as intentional fraud, in them, or in any one of their transcribers, or 
translators ; to inherent impossibility of rendering perfectly one language 
into another, owing to defects in the power of words ; and finally, to a 
want of understanding on the part of the reader. Unless we suppose 
God to superintend every circumstance relating to it, extending in mi- 
nute ramifications farther than we can calculate or conceive, the divinity 
of the record is liable to be lost in an accumulation of inextricable human 
error. 



AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELA- 

THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT 

To come now from the general to the special question of the Christian 
Revelation. To us it presents itself embodied in a volume, whose cre- 
dentials to be of Divine authority have first to be examined. 

XII. A book is before us professing to contain the record 
The Bible is a he- °f two miraculous dispensations communicated by God 
terogeneous com- to his creatures ; the one between three and four thou- 
piiation; sand years ago, the other nearly two thousand. When 
was it written, and who was its author ? 

It is a compilation of distinct works, in various styles of composi- 
tion, history, poetry, political laws, prophetic warnings, moral instruc- 
tion, and familiar epistles ; written by different authors, at various 
periods ; without direct recognition of one another, except, in general, 
that the old covenant is acknowledged by the writers of the new j and 
without any express claim to Divine inspiration. 

XIII. The New Testament, though now we have it in a 
subject to many settled canon, and authorized version, " appointed to 
critical altera- be read in churches", has been subject to various 
tlons " alterations, and to a critical sectarian warfare, from the 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



13 



DIFFICULTY OF JtECORDING IT.] 

Jesus and to reject Hhn, found a ready excuse (an excuse which would 
not be listened to now), by attributing his miracles to the magical arts 
which in those days were commonly believed in. And, again, though 
they saw many miracles which we only read of, they did not see that 
great miracle (as it may be called) which is before our eyes, in the ful- 
filment of prophecy since their time. They could see, indeed, many 
prophecies fulfilled in Jesus ; but we have an advantage over them in 
witnessing the more complete fulfilment of the prophecies respecting the 
wonderful spread of his religion."* 

If the transmission of Divine truth through human instrumentality 
presents difficulties in the way of our reception of it, they are such as 
it is healthful to overcome ; forcing us to a careful watchfulness of its 
progress, and a cultivation of all kinds of knowledge that relate to it. 
And this is not excluding the ignorant from the benefit of it. It is 
good for men to be able to rely on one another's word, not shutting 
their own eyes, but for report of what is beyond their sight. Is it on 
this subject that we must first begin to find all human testimony unre- 
liable, when almost the whole of our knowledge of the past and present 
is derived from it ! If we believe in profane history, as the general 
rule, notwithstanding some recognised mistakes, so may we also in sacred. 
Neither can we doubt that the Providence of God watches over His own 
work ; and will not permit any human blundering to mar its efficacy. 

TION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : 
SUPPORTED BY EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 

XII. The more various are the contents of the sacred volume, the 
more remarkable is it that they should have a common object and a com- 
mon spirit. 

"Is it not possible to pursue a leading idea from Genesis to Malachi, 
and would not any observant and reflecting man rise up from a study of 
the whole, with a strongly excited expectation that something still better 
was to come — something towards which his attention has been repeatedly 
directed — something to the success and glory of which all that he had 
been reading was, by its own account, preparatory ?"t 

XIII. "If any book were forged by some learned man in these 
days, and put forth as a translation from an ancient book, there are 
many other learned men, of this and various other countries, and of 
different religions, who would be eager to make an inquiry, and examine 
the question, and would be sure to detect any forgery, especially on an 
important subject. And it is the same with translators. Many of these 

* Whately's Christian Evidences. Lesson V. § 4. 
f Miall's Bases of Belief, p. 408. 



14 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.— 

time when Marcion the Gnostic heretic accepted only Matthew of the 
Gospels, and of Paul's Epistles only ten ; — on to the time when the 
Vulgate, (Jerome's Latin translation, completed in a.d. 384,) pronounced 
authentic by the Council of Trent, and sanctioned by Popes to be used 
for ever, was decried by Protestants, who had their Luther's version, 
their Elzevir edition, their Beza's and Erasmus's, to set in opposition to 
it ; — down to the present time, when not only Unitarians have their 
" Improved Version", but the most orthodox commentators are obliged 
to admit critical improvements into their received text. 



XIV. It is not certainly known when or by whom the 

rp, „ . canon of the New Testament was formed, but it is ge- 

Ine canon of _ ° 

the N. t. was nerally believed to have been settled by authority at 
long unsettled; the Council of Laodicea a.d. 363. Eusebius (a.d. 315) 
^tdTookT *** extinguished the undisputed books from the dis- 
puted (the latter being Hebrews, James, II. Peter, 
II. and III. John, Jude, and Revelations), showing that there was 
controversy as to which were genuine. But in that age, though it 
was virulent enough in party animosity,* there was little acquaintance 
with the true principles of criticism, and little means of exercising 
it after at least 200 years had buried in obscurity the real origin 
m . .. .. of the books. It is true there is a chain of tradition 

The authenticity 

of the books in respecting them, extending to nearly the apostolic age, 
general ill sup- handed down to us in the writings of the early Chris- 
StL^ early tian Fathers ; but it is of a very vague kind, consist- 
ing chiefly of repetitions of passages which are also found 
in our sacred books, and therefore supposed to be quotations from them, 
though, except in a few instances, they are not mentioned as such, and 
may just as well be an echo of traditional sayings, as extracts from writ- 
ten works. And even if they were quotations from books bearing the 
same name, and general form of ours ; because these isolated passages 
agree, it does not at all follow that the resemblance was complete in 
every part. The original works might have been altered and remodelled 
again and again before we have any distinct information about them. 
Some of the Epistles of Paul, as they were the earliest, appear also the 
most genuine of the sacred writings ; but every critical probability is 
that the historical books existed at first as mere fragments, until, perhaps 
gradually, they were compiled into their present form. 



* See for strong corroboration of the above, The Rise and Progress of Christianity, 
just published, [1854], by R. W. Mackay. Chapman's Quarterly Series, No. 7. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



15 



— EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

are at variance with each other as to the precise sense of some particular 
passage ; and many of them are very much opposed to each other, as to 
the doctrines which they believe to be taught in Scripture. But all the 
different versions of the Bible agree as to the main outline of the his- 
tory, and of the discourses recorded : and therefore an unlearned Chris- 
tian may be as sure of the general sense of the original as if he under- 
stood the language of it, and could examine it for himself ; because he 
is sure that unbelievers, who are opposed to all Christians, or different 
sects of Christians, who are opposed to each other, would not fail to 
point out any errors in the translations made by their opponents. Scho- 
lars have an opportunity to examine and inquire into the meaning of 
the original works ; and therefore the very bitterness with which they 
dispute against each other, proves that where they all agree they must 
be right. All these ancient books, in short, and all the translations of 
them, are in the condition of witnesses placed in a witness-box, in a 
court of justice ; examined and cross-examined by friends and enemies, 
and brought face to face with each other, so as to make it certain that 
any falsehood or mistake will be brought to light."* 

XIV. " Christian writers and Churches appear to have soon arri- 
ved at a very general agreement upon the subject, (of the ascription of 
the gospels to their respective authors,) and that without the interposi- 
tion of any public authority. When the diversity of opinion, which 
prevailed and prevails among Christians in other points, is considered, 
their concurrence in the canon of scripture is remarkable, and of great 
weight, especially as it seems to have been the result of private and 
free inquiry. We have no knowledge of any interference of authority 
in the question before the council of Laodicea in the year 363."t 

" In the epistle of Barnabas, the companion of Paul (well authen- 
ticated) appears the following remarkable passage : — * Let us, therefore, 
beware lest it come upon us, as it is written, there are many called, 
few chosen.' From the expression, 'as it is written,' we infer with 
certainty, that, at the time when the author of this epistle lived, there 
was a book extant, well known to Christians, and of authority amongst 
them, containing these words, ' Many are called, few chosen.' Such 
a book is our present Gospel of St. Matthew, in which this text is 
twice found, and is found in no other book now known. The writer 
of the epistle was a Jew. The phrase, 'it is written,' was the very 
form in which the Jews quoted their scriptures. . . . The epistle was 
probably by very few years posterior to those of St. Paul."* Quota- 
tions from the Gospels, (without, however, being specified as quota- 
tions,) are found in epistles of Clement, bishop of Rome, and of Hermas, 

* Whately's Christian Evidences. Lesson III. p. 28. 
f Paley's Evidences. Part i. Chap. ix. Proposition VI. 
J Paley's Evidences, Part I. chap. ix. § I. 



16 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.- 
XV. It is especially necessary that the Gospels, which con- 

The names of * a * n hi stoi 7 °f Jesus Christ, should be well authen- 
authors of Gos- ticated ; but the external attestation to them is very- 
pels are conjee- meagre and unsatisfactory. The names of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John are first attributed to them, the 
two former by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius, (his own writings being 
lost,) in a.d. 116;* the two latter by Irenaeus in a.d. 178t : and of 
the persons so named we know nothing certainly besides what is told 
in the books themselves. Matthew is supposed to be the apostle so 
called in the Gospel history ; Mark is reported, unanimously, to be the 
follower of Peter, and conjectured to be the same as the nephew of 
Barnabas alluded to Col. iv. 10; Luke is agreed to be a companion of 
Paul (lately suggested to be the same as Silasj) ; while the writer of the 
fourth Gospel differs from the rest by declaring himself to be "the 
disciple whom Jesus loved," a periphrases for the Apostle John, but 
has no external voucher for the fact till Irenseus confirms it nearly 100 
years afterwards. The important point whether the Gospel historians 
had personal knowledge of what they relate, is thus supported by very 
slight external testimony. The second and third evangelists indeed are 
not thought to pretend to it, Mark being supposed to have gathered his 
information from Peter, and Luke saying expressly that he had collected 
his materials from others. The Gospel of Matthew is preeminent in im- 
portance for establishing the historical truth of Christianity ; but its 
origin is so obscure that we do not even know certainly in what lan- 
guage it was written. According to early tradition, Matthew wrote in 
Hebrew ; but whether our present Greek is a translation, or a duplicate 
original, written also by the Apostle, has been warmly contested, even 
amongst orthodox critics ;§ while it has been shewn probable by others, 
that the original sayings, Xoyta, of Matthew mentioned by Papias, were 
only fragments, subsequently worked up into a consecutive history. 



* Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. Ed. 1755. Vol. I. p, 239. 
f Ibid, p. 344. 

X Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity, by C. C. Hennell, 2nd Edi 
1841. p. 152. 
§ Pictorial Family Bible. Introduction to Matthew. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



17 



-EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

both mentioned by St. Paul ; of Ignatius, who became bishop of Antioch 
about 37 years after Christ's ascension, and therefore probably known 
to apostles, — who also quotes from Paul's epistles, both by name and 
without — ; and of Polycarp, (taught by apostles, as is testified by 
Irenaeus, and by them appointed bishop of Smyrna,) in one short un- 
doubted epistle by whom, we have no less than 40 clear allusions to 
books of the New Testament, chiefly from St. Paul, but many from the 
gospels. They are quoted by Papias a.d. 116 ; by Justin Martyr about 
140 ; and abundantly onwards, by writers of remote countries, as books 
well known and highly revered. No apocryphal writing has the same 
testimony. Quotations are so thickly sown in the works of Origen 
A.d. 230, that Dr. Mill says, "If we had all Ids works remaining, we 
should have before us almost the whole text of the Bible." Dr. Lardner 
says of Tertullian, "that there are more, and larger, quotations of the 
small volume of the New Testament in this one Christian author, than 
there are of all the works of Cicero in writers of all characters for several 
ages." 

XV. "Papias expressly ascribes the respective gospels to Matthew 
and Mark ; and in a manner which proves, that these gospels must have 
publicly borne the names of these authors at that time, and probably long 
before." Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of 
John, thus testifies the genuineness of the gospels within little more 
than a hundred years after they were published :* "We have not 
received the knowledge of the way of our salvation, by any others than 
those by whom the gospel has been brought to us. "Which gospel they 
first preached, and afterwards, by the will of God, committed to writ- 
ing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of 
our faith. — For after that our Lord rose from the dead, and they (the 
apostles) were endowed from above with the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all 
things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring 
to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them, and every 
one alike, the gospel of God. Matthew there, among the Jews, writ a 
gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the 
gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. And after their exit, 
Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in 
writing the things that had been preached by Peter. And Luke, the 
companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him 
(Paul). Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned 
upon his breast, he likewise published a gospel while he dwelt at Ephe- 
sus in Asia." 

It is true that the precise date at which the gospels were written 
cannot now be fixed with certainty ; and it is also true that the indica- 



* Paley's Evidences, test. VI. and x. 

c 



18 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation- 

XVI. The date at which they were written, has also been 

Dates uncertain ; matter of much difference of opinion, and has been fixed 
and fixed by theo- by theological bias. This is shown conspicuously with 
logical bias. regard to Matthew. Speaking of the time he wrote, 

Dr. Kitto says, (t the various alternatives that have been suggested range 
over 27 years ; the earliest date advocated being a.d. 37, and the latest 
being 64." Now it is a point of peculiar importance to know the date 
of this Gospel, because its character is affected by ascertaining whether 
the clear and precise prophecies which it gives respecting the siege of 
Jerusalem were written or not before the event. The siege lasted from 
66 — 70. Lardner, in considering the question of the date of the Gospel, 
sees reason to conclude that it was written not before 63 or 64 ; but 
he assumes that "the predictions must have been written before they 
were accomplished."* This is a specimen of the fairness of theological 
critics. The strong ground for believing the reverse, viz. : that the 
gospel was not written till near the end of the siege, when its catas- 
trophe might easily be foreseen, that is, between 68 — 70, is that down 
to that period the prophecy accurately corresponds with the historical 
facts, and no farther : for after the tribulation of those days, the sun 
was not darkened, neither did the Son of Man appear in the clouds of 
heaven before that generation had passed away.t 



No special care 
of Providence was 
manifested in the 
preservation of 



XVII. The date and authorship of the fourth Gospel have 

also been subject to much controversy, chiefly on dog- 
matic grounds. But this cannot be entered on here, 
where the design is not so much to argue the question 
of the authenticity of these books, which would re- 
quire a volume, as to show that it is very susceptible 
of argument ; that great doubt lies upon it ; that there is so much un- 
certainty about the composition, as well as the collection of the sacred 
writings, as is inconsistent with the idea of their being a special in- 



* History of Apostles, ch. v. sec. 3. Quoted by Hennell, p. 109 note. 

+ See Origin of Christianity, p. 97. et seq. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



19 



EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

tions respecting it gathered from internal evidence, will depend upon 
the judgment formed of the character of the contents. If the writers 
be found faithful historians in all other respects, their word is not to 
be doubted that what they represent as prophecy was really such. 

XVI. "The scriptures were in very early times collected into a distinct 
volume. Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch within 40 years after the 
ascension, and who had lived and conversed with the apostles, speaks 
of the gospel and of the apostles in terms which render it very probable, 
that he meant by the gospel, the book or volumes of the Gospels, and 
by the apostles, the book or volume of their Epistles. . . . About 80 years 
after this we have direct proof, in the writings of Clement of Alexan- 
dria, that these two names, 4 Gospel' and ' Apostles,' were the names 
by which the writings of the New Testament, and the division of these 
writings, were usually expressed.""* Later testimonies to the same effect 
are abundant. 

They were called, beginning from Polycarp, "the holy scripture," 
— "the divine oracles," — "the divinely inspired scriptures," — "the true 
evangelical canon, "t Commentaries were written upon them; harmonies 
formed out of them ; different copies carefully collated ; and versions 
of them made into different languages. "The fourth century supplies 
a catalogue of fourteen writers, who expended their labours upon the 
books of the JSTew Testament, and whose works or names are come down 
to our times." Eusebius (a.d. 315) says, "that the writings of the 
apostles had obtained such an esteem as to be translated into every 
language both of Greeks and Barbarians, and to be diligently studied 
by all nations. "J 

They were appealed to as of mutually recognised authority in the 
controversies amongst Christians of different sects, and attacked as such 
by enemies. A catalogue of the books of scripture is to be found in 
the works of Origen (a.d. 230) containing all our present number ex- 
cept the epistles of James and Jude, and none that we have not.§ 

XVII. Paley sums up his chapter on the authenticity of the Historical 
Scriptures thus : "These are strong arguments to prove that the books ac- 
tually proceeded from the authors whose names they bear, (and have always 
borne, for there is not a particle of evidence to show that they ever 
went under any other) ; but the strict genuineness of the books is per- 
haps more than is necessary to the support of our proposition. For even 
supposing that, by reason of the silence of antiquity, or the loss of re- 
cords, we knew not who were the writers of the four Gospels, yet the 
fact, that they were received as authentic accounts of the transaction 



* Paley's Evidences. Part I. chap. IX. sec. ill. f Ibid. sec. iv. 

% Paley's Evidences. Part I. ctap. ix. sec. vi. § Ibid. sec. vn. ix. x. 



20 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. — 
strument in the hands of Providence for the salvation of the human 
race. If our faith in them is to be founded on a reasonable examina- 
tion of evidence, it is surely important for us to know when and by 
what description of persons they were written 5 and to be sure that 
they have been preserved in all their integrity. But of this no means 
are left of satisfying ourselves. They do not emerge from their histo- 
rical obscurity till the religion has had time to establish itself in a 
worldly manner, and to provide for its literature a safe and honourable 
custody. 



AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELA- 
THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT 

XVIII. If we could suppose an intelligent person of our own 
It is difficult to day, otherwise well cultivated, but who had never heard 

understand. a word about Christianity, opening the New Testament 
for the first time, he may well be imagined to ask, with the eunuch in 
the Acts, "How can I understand, except some man should guide me?" 
Beyond some passages of simple narrative, attractive from their deep 
human feeling, but mixed up with marvellous legends that without re- 
ligious prepossessions he would at once set down as the childish fabri- 
cations of an ignorant age ; and except the moral precepts, whose 
excellence would arrest his attention ; — if he went on to try and find 
the purport of the whole, and the cause of the solemn earnestness of 
its tone, he might read it over and over again, and yet puzzle himself 
in vain. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"; 
— saved from what? — and how believe? — believe all that is here told of 
this mysterious personage ? — What has this to do with us, except indeed 
as matter of historical curiosity, and moral interest? 

XIX. That the Christian Scriptures should be so entirely 
Requiring much conceived in Jewish modes of thought, and that, with- 

learning. ou t explanation of surrounding circumstances and opi- 

nions, they should merely speak their own words, without seeming care 
for their intelligibility to any but their cotemporary countrymen : is 
undoubtedly the strongest proof that could be given of their genuine 
antiquity ; but this is, regarding them as merely human documents. If 
we are to consider them as providentially designed for the enlightenment 
of all ages, it is hard to be accounted for. 



ANSWERS OP CHRISTIANITY. 



21 



— EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

upon ■which the religion rested, and were received as such by Christians 
at or near the age of the apostles, by those whom the apostles had 
taught, and by societies which the apostles had founded ; this fact, I 
say, connected with the consideration, that they are corroborative of each 
other's testimony, and that they are further corroborated by another 
contemporary history, taking up the story where they had left it, . . . and 
confirmed by letters written by the apostles themselves .... (the present, 
and no other story, being referred to by a series of Christian writers, 
down from their age to our own ; being likewise recognised in a variety 
of institutions, which prevailed, early and universally, amongst the dis- 
ciples of the religion) ; and that so great a change, as the oblivion of 
one story and the substitution of another, under such circumstances, 
could not have taken place ; this evidence would be deemed, I appre- 
hend, sufficient to prove concerning these books, that, whoever were the 
authors of them, they exhibit the story which the apostles told, and 
for which, consequently, they acted, and they suffered."* 

TION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : 
SUPPORTED BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 

XVIII. "In the life of Jesus Christ, as recorded by the evange- 
lists, we have a display of the moral aspects of the Divine character 
and will, adapted to the wants of our religious nature. That embodi- 
ment of truth after which human hearts, in all times, have instinctively 
craved, which brings God within range of our moral sympathies, and 
invites a trusting and affectionate response, is now before us, certified 
as such by the authority of reason. ' He that hath seen me,' said the 
Messiah, * hath seen the Father. 5 The living book in which we are to 
read God's mind in relation to his creature man, lies open to the inspec- 
tion of our hearts, as the book of nature lies open to our eyes and 
intellects. . . . God is in the life of his Son — in his discourses and his 
miracles — in his labours and endurance — in his daily tasks and in his 
nightly retreats — in his sublime patience, his unwearied benevolence, his 
touching tenderness — in his tears, his agony, his trial, his death — in his 
resurrection from the dead — in his ascension from the Mount of Olives. 
This entire history, so strange, yet so human, so unlike all other history, 
yet so consistent with our highest conceptions of religious fitness, is a 
vivid adumbration to our hearts of the Great Unseen, "f 

XIX. "There is little or nothing in the sacred writings of Chris- 
tianity calling attention to the fact that it is making a discovery of truths 
which the human mind could never have reached. All the primary no- 
tions of divine things which it embodies, it rather takes for granted, 

* Paley's Evidences, chap. x. Recapitulation, 
t Hiall's Bases of Belief, pp. 352—3. 



■2:1 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation- 

Salvation from what ? — not from natural death, not from our sins, 
not from the punishment of them in this world. From the "wrath to 
come" ; — hut what is meant by this threatened peril, of which we know 

nothing save from this supposed revelation itself ? It needs a thorough 

acquaintance with Jewish history, not merely in our Old Testament, which 
woidd be quite insufficient to clear up the matter, but with the subtleties of 
rabbinical lore, and also with the Greek-Alexandrian philosophy which was 
now diffusing its influence over the Jewish mind, before we can know what 
the apostles meant by being saved by Christ. We must comprehend the 
notion with which they were imbued, derived from savage antiquity, 
that "without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins," before 
we can see how it was necessary that " Christ should die in order that 
all be made alive." We must know what the Hebrews looked for in 
their Messiah Prince, and what the Platonists understood by their Divine 
Logos, before we can comprehend the meaning of calling Jesus of Naza- 
reth, the Christ. We must know the ideas of both respecting the Divine 
essence, before we can conceive in what sense they called him the Son 
of God. We must know what they thought of the human soul, and its 
abode in Hades, before we can appreciate their doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion of the body, and rejoice in the deliverance they proclaim from the 
second death. — Is this the manner in which God reveals himself? 



XX. From this book, which contains the doctrine of Chris- 

The books of tian salvation, have been derived innumerable varieties 
the N. t. are not G f belief ; sectarians of the most opposite creeds appeal- 
tririe™ 1 ^ ^ * n => ^° ^ s au ^ lor ityj anc ^ adducing from it a sanction 
for directly contrary opinions. Could this be, if it 
spoke clearly and intelligibly? The fact is that the different writers of 
the New Testament do not agree with one another, but betray an inde- 
pendence of judgment on subjects commonly considered of vital import- 
ance.* And between the earlier and the latest writings, there is a 
perceptible growth of doctrine, natural and necessary in a human point 
of view, but irreconcileable with a supernatural one. The chief point in 
which this is conspicuous, is their estimation of the dignity of Christ, 
rising from "the man approved of God" (Acts n. 22) to "Him by 
whom all things were created." (Coloss. i. 16.) It is difficult to con- 
ceive how the carpenter's son, who trod the shores of Galilee and died 
on the cross at Jerusalem, should come to be regarded as the Lord from 
Heaven, the Son of the Most High : yet when we consider that a few 
years beyond the apostolic age, when the ink of the canonical scrip- 
tures was scarcely dry, he was already exalted into the Most High Him- 
self, — to the scandal and horror of the simple Hebrew Christians, who, 
however, were soon silenced by the victorious party, and stigmatized with 



* E. g. between Paul and James, on faith and works. See Mackay's Rise and 
Progress of Christianity. Part II. on the Pauline Controversy. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



28 



—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

than announces as novelties. . . . But, undoubtedly, there is an aspect in 
which Christianity assumes an air of exclusive pretension. Taking it at 
its own word, its one purpose is to ' give Life' — Spiritual Life. Herein 
consists its originality — it conies Ho save.' The knowledge it professes 
to communicate is appropriated by the affections rather than the under- 
standing. The religious ideas which it sets before man are ideas to be 
comprehended by the heart. The grand mystery which it unveils is the 
Love of God — and this can only be recognised and appreciated by sym- 
pathetic emotions. Its object is not to increase knowledge, as such — for 
according to its own declaration 4 knowledge puffeth up' — but to beget 
and nourish love by that kind of knowledge which is laid hold of not 
by the head, but the heart. "* 

"Take the fundamental religious ideas pervading the Scriptures — the 
One God, eternal, immortal, invisible — man, his creature, dependent on 
him, and accountable to him — universal guilt, capable, however, of being 
removed by forgiveness — a future state of rewards and punishments — the 
efficacy of prayer — the principle of mediation : — the claim of the Christian 
. faith to be received as a revelation of God is not based upon its origi- 
nation of these ideas. . . . These constitute, as it were, but the raw material 
of the system — the simple elements which enter into its composition and 
structure. It is the special form given to these which warrants us in 
regarding Christ's gospel as the spiritual tuitional agency which the state 
of mankind required. . . . Christianity does with these primary religious 
ideas, what the artistic mind does with its blocks of stone — puts them 
together, shapes them, makes them exhibit an unity of meaning — in one 
word, brings out to our spiritual faculties and emotions, a finished em- 
bodiment in human fact and history, of the divine character, relation- 
ship, and purpose — and designates it 'The image of the invisible God."+ 

XX. It has been a standing argument with Roman Catholics against 
laying open the Bible to the multitude, that undisciplined minds would 
find there a sanction for all kinds of doctrine ; whence, they say, has 
proceeded the infinite variety of sects into which the "right of private 
judgment" has divided Protestantism. But to this the Protestant replies, 
that the guidance he needs to keep him from making his own human 
ideas stand as the interpretation of the Scriptures, is not that of men, 
but of the Spirit of God ; in humble reliance upon which whoever has 
applied himself to the sacred volume, has surely found all that was need- 
ful for his salvation. Most of the differences between sects arise from 
undue dwelling upon points that are rather of speculative curiosity than 
of practical faith, and respecting which no explicit revelation has been 
given ;t but in all that is essential, it is generally allowed that all Chris- 
tians are agreed ; except indeed, perhaps, those who lie at the opposite 



* Bases of Belief, p. 78. f Ibid, pp. 81, 82. 

X See Archbishop Whately's Essay on The practical character of Revelation. 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation- 
the brand of heresy, as the Arians, in a later day, when they made the same 
protest, were also put down by the finally triumphant Athanasians ; — when 
we consider that the course of doctrine was set so decidedly in this di- 
rection, always advancing to this stupendous consummation, it presents 
itself to us as the natural order of things, that the change, gradual and 
urged on by strong and obvious motives, might have come from a very 
simple beginning. 

XXI. To the unsophisticated reader we have imagined, this 

They have the would appear but like one of the Avatars of the Indian 
mythyic legends mythology, like an idea borrowed from old Grecian, or 
common to old Q \& QV Egyptian fable. Certainly, he would infer, if his 
eastern religions. we re stored with human learning instead of theo- 

logical prepossessions, the writers of these books were men unwilling 
that their Hebrew literature should be destitute of legends that might 
rival the rich poetic lore of other orientals. The mythic theory of Strauss 
would approve itself as offering an easy solution of the matter. Jesus 
was born of a Virgin : so were all the great demi-gods of antiquity. He 
holds the powers of nature subject to his command ; he is waited upon 
by angels ; he has a personal conflict with the Evil One ; suffers a tem- 
porary defeat, and offers himself a voluntary sacrifice, amidst thunderings 
and quakings of sympathetic Nature ; and is finally wafted bodily to 
Heaven : — all these things are found under various forms, again and 
again, in the heroic legends of the east, as if they had been framed after 
one original type ; which has been ingeniously explained as a figura- 
tive representation of the astronomical changes in the heavens. Easily 
would this explanation be satisfactory of the miraculous conception, the 
temptation, the transfiguration, the angelic visitings, the ascension, and 
perhaps other parts : and that this sort of embellishment should have 
been added to the life of Jesus, will not seem incredible, when the state 
of civilization of the age is taken into account, and the absence of means 
of circulating intelligence of what was actually going on, and when it 
is remembered how little certainty there is as to the date and authorship 
of these writings. "There is nothing in the ancient testimonies to ex- 
clude the supposition, which all & priori considerations render probable, 
that our four Gospels only gradually received their present form after the 
materials of which they are composed had been long floating on the cur- 
rent of oral tradition. It is only necessary to form a just conception of 
the state of Palestine in order to understand how, even dining the life- 
time of Jesus, legends respecting him might be current. The popular 
Jewish mind with its native love of the marvellous, stimulated by a new 
religious enthusiasm, with its stirring national traditions and Messianic 
expectations, was exactly the soil for the fertile production of myths. 
If it be admitted that the biblical history is less offensive to our concep- 
tion of Deity than the heathen mythology, it is not less at variance with 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



25 



— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

extremes of Christianity, — those who lay reason entirely prostrate before 
the human authority of priests, and those who give it such a preponde- 
rance over faith as scarcely to suffer it to yield to the authority of God. 

As to a difference in the representation of the dignity of Christ, it 
is true that there are portions of the New Testament upon which the 
Unitarians rest their assertion of his simple humanity, while from others 
the body of Christians derive their belief of his divinity ; but this is ex- 
plained by the doctrine of the two-fold nature of Him who was the 
"Word made flesh." And it was natural that the human impressions 
of Jesus, which at first were necessarily the strongest in the minds of 
the disciples, should gradually be merged in the predominant sense of 
his divinity. 

XXI. "The Classical mythology, the Egyptian mythology, and the 
Hindoo mythology, (always restricted to the nations in whose remote 
barbarism they originated, and with whose immemorial traditions they 
were intertwined), may be studied long enough before they make a single 
proselyte among those different races and different nations who did re- 
ceive, who have received, and who persist in receiving, the myths of 
Christianity as historic verities. So that the very least that can be said 
is, that the compilers of the Gospel have, with an utterly incomprehen- 
sible ingenuity, infinitely transcended all other masters of fable and legend, 
and have succeeded in making dreams wilder than ever poet feigned, 
wear to minds of different ages and races (for here lies the stress of the 
argument) the aspect of genuine history. "* 

"On the hypothesis that the miracles of the New Testament were 
either a congeries of deeply contrived fictions, or accidental myths, sub- 
sequently fabricated ; — the infidel must believe, on the former supposition, 
that, though even transient success in literary forgery, when there are 
any prejudices to resist, is among the rarest of occurrences, yet that these 
forgeries, the hazardous work of many minds, making the most outra- 
geous pretensions, and necessarily challenging the opposition of Jew and 
Gentile, were successful, beyond all imagination, over the hearts of man- 
kind ; and have continued to impose, by an exquisite appearance of 
heartless truth, and a most elaborate mosaic of feigned events artfully 
cemented into the ground of true history, on the acutest minds of different 
races and different ages ; while, on the second supposition, he must be- 
lieve that accident and chance have given to these legends their requisite 
appearance of historic plausibility, and on either supposition, he must 
believe (what is infinitely more wonderful) that the world, while the fic- 
tions were being published, and in the known absence of the facts they 
asserted to be true, suffered itself to be befooled into the belief of their 
truth, and out of its belief of all the systems it did previously believe to 



* Reason and Faith. Appendix. Rogers's Essays from the Edinburgh Review. 
Vol; IL, p. 348. 



26 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. 
the idea which is the very essence of modern culture, — that, namely, 
of the invariability of cause and effect, or, to express it theologically, 
the conviction that 4 God acts upon the world as a whole immediately, 
but on each part only by means of His action on every other part, that 
is to say, by the laws of nature.' The true conception of the myth 
does away with the imputation of fraud or premeditated deception. A 
myth is the gradually wrought expression of popular ideas, which em- 
body themselves, not in the language of abstractions and generalities, 
but in imagined facts corresponding to the genius of the community. 
In the case of the early Jewish Christians the material for their myths 
was amply accumulated in the traditionary details concerning the Mes- 
siah, drawn by rabbinical interpretation from the Old Testament. These 
traditions they firmly believed ; but, on the other hand, they were equally 
convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. The natural result was the trans- 
ference and accommodation to the life of Jesus of all the Messianic cha- 
racteristics — a blending together of what the Messiah was expected to be, 
with what Jesus actually was."* 

XXII. It is indeed not conceivable that this mythical colour- 

Accounts of ing should have been given by writers who were eye- 
Jesus are incom- witnesses, and therefore it tends strongly to disprove 
likTthose of eye- their being such ; showing itself as it does, not only in 
witnesses. the peculiar legends, f but in the pervading tone, espe- 

cially in the manner of speaking of the exalted position of Jesus as the 
Christ, the Son of the living God, which is more as if it were a doctrine 
for which all were prepared, than a matter of their own personal know- 
ledge. And there are also many other indications of a deficiency in 
respect to the latter. 

It must strike every one how far these books are from giving us a com- 
plete account of the life of Jesus. With exception of the legendary 
notices of his birth, the entire period embraced by the narrative is on 
the largest computation, three years, but most probably only one year. 
And the information given relates solely to his public mission : we have 
none of those private details of family circumstances which it seems in- 
credible that intimate companions should not have afforded. It is not 
denied, indeed, that many life-like incidents are recorded, which strike 
with an air of reality. Such are to be found especially in Matthew, 
which may well have been written, or handed down traditionally from 
an eye-witness, who may have been the Apostle himself. " But that 
this eye-witness was the compiler of this whole gospel, would be very 
difficult to reconcile with the impression given by reading it. In addi- 
tion to (other points), the notices of time and place are in general far 

* Analysis of Strauss' s Life of Jesus, in Chapman's Analytical Catalogue. See 
also Life of Jesus, English Translation, 1846. Vol I, p. 85. 

f The account of tbe " Nativity" in Luke is a remarkable specimen of these. 

See Strauss' s Life of Jesus, Vol, I. p. 170, et seq. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



27 



■INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

be true ; and that it acted thus notwithstanding persecution from with- 
out, as well as prejudice from within ; that, strange to say, the strictest 
historic investigations bring this compilation of fictions or myths — even 
by the admission of Strauss himself — within thirty or forty years of the 
very time in which all the alleged wonders they relate are said to have 
occurred ; wonders which the perverse world knew it had not seen, but 
which it was determined to believe, in spite of evidence, prejudice, and 
persecution ! In addition to all this, the infidel must believe that the 
men who were engaged in the compilation of these monstrous fictions, 
chose them as the vehicle of the purest morality ; and, though the most 
pernicious deceivers of mankind, were yet the most scrupulous preachers 
of veracity and benevolence ! Surely of him who can receive all these 
paradoxes— and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned 
— we may say, ' O infidel, great is thy Faith !' "* 

" The worth of this very ingenious theory may be settled by a single 
question — Does the supposed mythical crystallization, as we have it in 
the life of Christ, correspond with the Messianic ideas previously held 
in solution by the J ewish people ? Would minds full of Old Testament 
notions, or rather, of notions derived from a perverted interpretation of 
Old Testament history and prophecy, have ultimately deposited a mythical 
form resembling in any one of its aspects the life of Christ ? ... It is 
notorious that the Jews, reading their prophets by the interpretative 
light kindled by their own national pride, expected a Messiah the very 
opposite in all respects to the one described in the gospel narratives. 
They looked for a prince and a conqueror;, armed with Divine power to 
smite, overthrow, and subjugate their foes. If their preconceptions had 
taken mythic form, and Old Testament ideas filtering through the na- 
tional mind had merely become concrete in the New — if this alleged 
miracle is but a reproduction of one performed by Elisha, and that, of 
one performed on Elijah — how comes it that Moses is consigned to such 
marked neglect, more especially as the tone of his supernatural works 
harmonized so completely with Jewish conceptions of what would be the 
Messiah's object ? Why have we not fire from heaven to consume oppo- 
nents, or plagues to worry them, or at least, legions of angels to terrify 
them ? Can any one really believe that national religious sentiment in 
the country and age of Jesus Christ, was such as, if left to express itself 
concerning the Messiah that was to come, would associate miraculous 
power exclusively with gentleness, and employ it in acts of goodness 
towards the ecclesiastically despised, and outcast and banned ? The 
theory . . . clears a space for itself by showing that any naturalistic in- 
terpretation, once so fashionable in Germany, and still adopted by some 
sceptics in this country, is manifestly untenable and absurd. It admits, 
by implication, that the Jesus Christ of history so corresponds with the 



* Reason and Faith, Ed. Rev, Octobor, 1849, Rogers's Essays, vol. II., p. 286. 



28 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.— 

from being so complete as one would expect from an eye-witness. There 
are continual chasms in the itinerary of Jesus ; and notwithstanding the 
apparent endeavour to preserve the connexion of the story by joining 
the incidents together with such phrases as 4 At that time' — 1 And when' 
— 4 Then' — 'From that time forth,' &c, there are so many abrupt transi- 
tions, that it is difficult to imagine that the writer could have been 
travelling companion to Jesus for any length of time, as the disciples 
are represented to have been. For instance, ch. xv. 21, Jesus goes 
from Gennesaret near the sea of Galilee, to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, 
a distance of nearly 50 miles, and back again ; and nothing is told as 
to the object or incidents of this journey except the affair of the Syro- 
phenician woman. In mentioning the many journeys of Jesus and his 
followers about the country, an eye-witness could hardly have avoided 
giving some particulars about the manner in which they were performed, 
such as the method of journeying, the number of the party, the diffi- 
culties from roads and weather, the houses at which they stayed, and 
the like. Such minutiae, however trifling, are almost inevitably inter- 
woven with the narrations of an eye-witness. In Matthew, they are 
wanting to such a degree, that we cannot even guess whether J esus per- 
formed his numerous land journeys on foot, by mules, or some other 
mode of conveyance. The difference between the narratives of a travel- 
ling companion and those of a second-hand narrator, is seen very well 
by comparing Luke's account of Paul's latter journeys with Matthew's 
indistinct sketches of those of Jesus, viz., 'He departed from Galilee 
and came into the coasts of Judea,' * when Jesus came into the coasts of 
Cesar ea Philippi,' &c."* 

XXIII. Much has been said about the artless simplicity of 

Artistic design the Gospel narratives : but when they are examined in 
is apparent in the an unprejudiced spirit, like any other valuable remains 
evangelists. G f an tiquity, this judgment is found little discriminating. 

It throws much light on the whole subject, to mark how the evangelists 
resemble other authors in showing their characteristic modes of compo- 
sition, and that these are sometimes of a kind that is inconsistent with 
divine superintendence. 

Thus, of Matthew : "It is natural that when a writer confines him- 
self to giving relics of real discourses, he should only be able to present 
us with small fragments ; but when he allows himself to speak for his 
characters, the style should become more eloquent and flowing. This 
distinction is very observable in Matthew. Those parts, forming per- 
haps the larger proportion, which appear from historical considerations 
to give us very nearly real sayings of J esus, are chiefly in the fragmentary 
style. See the discourse of the mount, evidently a miscellaneous collec- 
tion ; the sayings and parables during the journeys about Galilee ; and 

* Origin of Christianity, p. 122. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



29 



"—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

Messiah of Old Testament prophecies, that the first is but a mythical 
deposit of the last — might have been borrowed from it ; and having done 
this service, it disappears before the palpable fact, that Jewish minds 
did not so interpret their prophets, and that if the supernatural features 
of those narratives are mythical concretions, they have hardened into 
shapes wholly unlike what Jewish national ideas of the Messiah would 
spontaneously have taken."* 

XXII. " Another internal proof, and one within the reach of all, 
may be gathered from the style and character of the evangelical narra- 
tives. They are written with the simplicity, minuteness, and ease, which 
are the natural tones of truth, which belong to writers thoroughly ac- 
quainted with their subjects, and writing from reality. You discover 
in them nothing of the labour, caution, and indistinctness, which can 
scarcely be escaped by men who are assuming a character not their own, 
and aiming to impose on the world. There is a difference which we have 
all discerned and felt, though we cannot describe it, between an honest 
simple-hearted witness, who tells what he has seen, or is intimately ac- 
quainted with, and the false witness, who affects an intimate knowledge 
of events and individuals, which are in whole or in part his own fabri- 
cation. Truth has a native frankness, an unaffected freedom, a style 
and air of its own, and never were narratives more strongly characterized 
by these than the Gospels. "t 

XXIII. "It is a striking circumstance in these books, that whilst 
the life and character which they pourtray, are the most extraordinary 
in history, the style is the most artless. There is no straining for epi- 
thets or for elevation of language to suit the dignity of the great personage 
who is the subject. You hear plain men telliug you what they know, 
of a character which they venerated too much to think of adorning or 
extolling. It is also worthy of remark, that the character of Jesus, 
though the most peculiar and exalted in history, though the last to be 
invented and the hardest to be sustained, is yet unfolded through a great 
variety of details and conditions, with perfect unity and consistency. 
The strength of this proof can only be understood by those who are suf- 
ficiently acquainted with literary history, to appreciate the difficulty of 
accomplishing a consistent and successful forgery. Such consistency is, 
in the present case, an almost infallible test. Suppose four writers, of 
a later age, to have leagued together in the scheme of personating the 
first propagators of Christianity, and of weaving, in their name, the his- 
tories of their Master's life. Removed as these men would have been 
from the original, and having no model or type of his character in the 
elevation of their own minds, they must have pourtrayed him with an 

* Bases of Belief, pp. 253, 255. 

f Channing's Works, p. 408. Evidences of Christianity, part I. 



30 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation- 

the few sayings attributed to Jesus during his trial. But in those parts 
applicable to the time of the siege, x. 17 — 33, xxiv. and xxv., the style 
expands, as if the writer were giving vent to his own thoughts, or at 
least modifying and amplifying freely his authentic materials. (The re- 
proofs of the Pharisees, xxiii. are however an instance of exception, being 
in a very continuous form, although presenting for the most part strong 
appearances of genuineness.)"* "In many of the fragments are strong 
indications that the writer allowed himself to embellish or piece out the 
meagre record of a scene or discourse from his own imagination. ... In 
the scene at Gethsemane, he not only relates facts which might have 
reached him, but gives in an equally earnest and pathetic manner the 
prayers and movements of Jesus, whilst his only companions, Peter, 
James, and John were asleep, xxvi. 36 — 45. In mentioning that Herod 
the tetrarch heard the fame of Jesus (xiv. 1), he puts into his mouth 
a speech very consistent with the ideas of the Christians, but not at all 
congruous to the supposed speaker ; for the hasty conclusion that Jesus 
must be ' J ohn the Baptist risen from the dead, and therefore mighty 
works do show forth themselves in him,' and especially the proclamation 
of such a fear, betoken a terror-stricken conscience approaching to insa- 
nity, for which there is not sufficient support in all that remains concern- 
ing Herod Antipas. (Josephus says he put John to death deliberately 
from political motives.) In the account of the warning given by John 
to the tetrarch on a matter of the most private nature, the motives of 
Herod, the agreement between Herodias and her daughter, were not 
likely to be known so accurately by one of the lower ranks in Judea. 
. . . the whole account differs essentially from that of Josephus, who must 
have had incomparably better means of knowing the truth, than either 
a cotemporary tax-gatherer, or a member of the Christian sect 35 years 
later."f 

Mark : " The style of Mark has strong peculiarities, earnestness, 
warmth, and almost child-like simplicity. He is contented with nar- 
rating facts, and omits all long discourses ; any thing controversial or 
obscure he sedulously shuns. . . . Matthew's quotations from the prophets 
were also probably omitted because he could not see their application. 
. . . He endeavours to aggrandize Jesus to the utmost that his materials 
will allow him, by repeating again and again the amazement of beholders, 
ii. 12 ; vi. 2 ; the great numbers who were attracted by him, m. 7, 8 ; 
VI. 56 ; so that there was no room about the door, n. 2 ; so that they 
could not eat bread, nr. 20 ; vi. 31 ; by the reverent confession of the 
devils, I. 24 ; in. 11 ; by the solemn preliminary of looking round about 
him previous to speaking, in. 34 ; vin. 33 ; x. 27. But he has evi- 
dently much less talent and imagination than the compiler of the 1st 
Gospel, and although apparently well-disposed to enhance the marvel- 
lous complexion of his story, his additions, whether Ms own or selected 
by him, are of a very poor kind as compared with the bold poetical 
* Origin of Christianity, p. 120. f Ibid, p. 117. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



31 



—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

unsteady hand, must have marred their work with incongruous features, 
must have brought down their hero on some occasion to the ordinary 
views and feelings of men, and in particular must have been warped in 
their selection and representation of incidents by the private purpose 
which led them to this singular co-operation. That four writers, under 
such circumstances, should sustain throughout so peculiar and elevated 
a character as Jesus, and should harmonize with each other in the deli- 
neation, would be a prodigy which no genius, however pre-eminent, 
could achieve. I say, then, that the narratives bear strong internal 
marks of having been drawn from the living original, by those who had 
the best means of knowing his character and life."* 

"The New Testament consists of histories and epistles. The his- 
torical books, namely, the Gospel and the Acts, are a continued narra- 
tive, embracing many years, and professing to give the history of the 
rise and progress of the religion. Now it is worthy of observation, 
that these writings completely answer their end ; that they completely 
solve the problem, how this peculiar religion grew up and established 
itself in the world ; that they furnish precise and adequate causes for 
this stupendous revolution in human affairs. It is also worthy of remark, 
that they relate a series of facts, which are not only connected with one 
another, but are intimately linked with the long series which has fol- 
lowed them, and agree accurately with subsequent history, so as to ac- 
count for, and sustain it. Now, that a collection of fictitious narratives, 
coming from different hands, comprehending many years, and spreading 
over many countries, should not only form a consistent whole, when 
taken by themselves ; but should also connect and interweave themselves 
with real history so naturally and intimately, as to furnish no clue for 
detection, as to exclude the appearance of incongruity and discordance, 
and as to give an adequate explanation, and the only explanation of 
acknowledged events, of the most important revolution in society ; — 
this is a supposition from which an intelligent man at once revolts, and 
which, if admitted, would shake a principal foundation of history. — I 
have before spoken of the unity and consistency of Christ's character as 
developed in the Gospels, and of the agreement of the different writers 
in giving us the singular features of his mind. Now there are the same 
marks of truth running through the whole of these narratives. For ex- 
ample, the effects produced by Jesus on the various classes of society ; 
the different feelings of admiration, attachment, and envy, which he called 
forth ; the various expressions of these feelings ; the prejudices, mistakes, 
and gradual illumination of his disciples ; these are all given to us with 
such marks of truth and reality as could not easily be counterfeited. The 
whole history is precisely such as might be expected from the actual 
appearance . of such a person as Jesus Christ, in such a state of society 
as then existed. — The Epistles, if possible, abound in marks of truth and 



* Channing's Works, p. 409. 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY, 



[christian revelation. — 

fictions of dreams, angels, and earthquakes in Matthew. See his edition 
of the story of the swine. . . . This disposition to seize upon the mere 
childishly marvellous without the poetical, is seen strongly in Mark's 
neglect of the greater part of the most eloquent discourses and parables 
in Matthew. By him they are either omitted or reduced to tame epi- 
tomes j whilst he devotes the space saved to the amazement and num- 
bers of the multitudes, and other insipid amplifications."* 

Luke: "From as large a collection of materials as he could obtain, 
it appears that Luke intended to write in order a history of Jesus from 
the first, but that he soon found the task too difficult with respect to the 
order ; for, after the first few chapters, his narrative becomes so jumbled 
and confused, that the reader can form no clear idea of the course of 
events. It has the appearance of a mass of anecdotes and sayings, put 
down as they came to the author's notice, with very little regard to time 
or place, instead of a regular narrative, like Matthew's. Nearly the whole 
of Matthew and Mark may be traced in different parts of Luke, but much 
cut up and displaced. It seems probable that he endeavoured to accom- 
modate as large a portion as he could of those two to his other materials ; 
but finding that some sayings and facts were thus left out, in his anxiety 
to make his Gospel complete, he inserted the fragments where he could. 
. . . Another indication of Luke's fidelity is, that in recording the sayings 
of Jesus or the traditions of such sayings, he confines himself to fragments 
and parables, without expanding into long discourses suitable to his own 
position and time, such as we find in Matthew and John. . . . The style 
of the narrative in the Acts shows that the writer was a zealous adherent 
of the Church, a believer in its miraculous pretensions, and therefore 
not disposed to examine very rigidly stories favourable to the Christian 
cause. In this book, he falls into the style of Josephus, Herodotus, 
and most ancient historians, in embellishing his story with suitable 
speeches. The reverence with which the sayings of Jesus were recorded, 
probably restrained Luke to the mere reporting of such fragments as he 
could collect, or nearly so ; but in the Acts, he introduces numerous 
formal speeches. "t 

John : "Whilst the three first Gospels have principally an historical 
aim, viz., to give an account of the acts and sayings of Jesus, the object 
of the last is mainly an argumentative or controversial one, i.e., to enforce 
doctrines, supply arguments, and answer objections ; and this more with 
reference to the position and thoughts of the Ephesians in the year 97, 
than to those of the inhabitants of Judea in the time of Pilate. It is 
true that there is to some extent a blending of both stages of thought, 
and that the Apostle preserves probably some portion of the realities 
which had passed within or near his time 66 years previously. Thus his 
description of the notions of the priests, xi. 47, 48, their fear lest Jesus 
should occasion the total subversion of their state by the Romans, carries 



* Origin of Christianity, pp. 138, 140. f Ibid, pp. 163, 167, 172. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



33 



■INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

reality even more than the Gospels. They are imbued thoroughly with 
the spirit of the first age of Christianity. They bear all the marks of 
having come from men plunged in the conflicts which the new religion 
excited, alive to its interests, identified with its fortunes. They betray 
the very state of mind which must have been generated by the peculiar 
condition of the first propagators of the religion. They are letters written 
on real business, intended for immediate effects, designed to meet preju- 
dices and passions, which such a religion must first have awakened. 
They contain not a trace of the circumstances of a later age, or of the 
feelings, impressions and modes of thinking by which later times were 
characterized, and from which later writers could not easily have escaped. 
The letters of Paul have a remarkable agreement with his history. They 
are precisely such as might be expected from a man of a vehement 
mind, who had been brought up in the schools of Jewish literature, who 
had been converted by a sudden overwhelming miracle, who had been 
entrusted with the preaching of the new religion to the GTentiles, and 
was everywhere met by the prejudices and persecuting spirit of his own 
nation. They are full of obscurities growing out of these points of Paul's 
history and character, and out of the circumstances of the infant church, 
and which nothing but an intimate acquaintance with that early period 
can illustrate. This remarkable infusion of the spirit of the first age 
into the Christian Records, cannot easily be explained but by the fact, 
that they were written in that age by the real and zealous propagators 
of Christianity, and that they are records of real convictions and of actual 
events."* 

" If you look to the style of writing in the historical books (the four 
Gospels and the Acts,) you will observe that neither the miracles nor 
the sufferings of Christ or his Apostles are boastfully set forth, and elo- 
quently described and remarked upon ; as would have been natural for 
writers desirous of making a strong impression upon the reader. There 
is no endeavour to excite wonder, or admiration, or compassion, or in- 
dignation. There is nothing, in short, such as we should have expected 
in writers who were making up a marvellous story to produce an effect 
on men's feelings and imaginations. The miracles performed, and the 
instances of heroic fortitude displayed, are all related, briefly, calmly, 
and drily, and almost with an air of indifference, as if they were matters 
of every-day occurrence, and which the readers were familiar with. And 
this is, indeed, one strong proof that the readers to whom these books 
were addressed, — the early Christians, — really were (as the books them- 
selves give us to understand they were) familiar with these things ; in 
short, that the persecutions endured, and the Signs displayed, by the 
Apostles, really were, in those times and countries, common and noto- 
rious. — You should observe, also, the candid and frank simplicity with 



* Channing's "Works, p. 333. The Evidences of Revealed Religion. 

D 



34 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 

[christian revelation. 

lis back to the original transactions, and would be almost unintelligible 
unless compared with the other Gospels. The following texts bear 
strongly the appearance of being historical relics : i. 19 ; 24 ; 44 ; ir. 
18 ; in. 23 ; vi. 15 ; 30 ; vn. 5 ; x. 23 ; 24 ; xi. 47-50 ; 54 ; xix. 12. 
But in most chapters narrative forms but a small part, and has generally 
the subsidiary office of supplying occasion for the delivery of a doctrine. 
The events seem to be selected and arranged merely in order to give 
occasion for a miracle, or a declaration of faith. The answers or objec- 
tions in the dialogues are evidently inserted to conduce to the effect of 
the sentence which Jesus is to utter. And both friends and opponents 
usually make Christian admissions as full as the most zealous believer 
could desire ; much more certainly than the degree of acquaintance with 
Jesus, or other circumstances implied in the story would appear to war- 
rant. . . . The additional miracles in this Gospel are mostly of a more 
bold and marvellous character than those in the others. They are gene- 
rally represented as performed in the most public manner, without the 
injunctions to secresy so frequent in the three first Gospels. . . . Admit- 
ting the greater part of this Gospel to have been written or dictated by 
St. John, about the year 97, for the use of the Ephesian church, we have 
still no guarantee of the Apostle's veracity or correctness of memory. 
At that time he must have been nearly 100 years old : his other writings 
show that he possessed a vivid imagination and strong feelings ; and it is 
well known that such persons are apt to mingle truth and falsehood in 
their narrative even unintentionally. But the Apostle was also under 
the strongest temptation to indulge in fiction. . . Interest and ambition, 
as well as private friendship and religious zeal, urged John to be a stre- 
nuous preacher of Jesus the Messiah. . . . There was temptation continually 
to adopt or invent fresh stories of miracles, which might serve in the con- 
troversy as more indubitable proofs of a divine mission. In proportion * 
to the distance of time and place from the scene of the original transac- 
tions, this species of imposition became more easy. Accordingly, we find 
but few allusions to miracles in the Epistles ; abundant accounts of them 
in the four Gospels ; and in this last Gospel, published much later than 
the others, and at Ephesus, bolder and more , gross stories of miracles, 
as well as more confident appeals to them, than in any other. . . . Since 
he puts this saying into the mouth of Christ, (John iv. 48,) 4 Unless ye 
see wonders and signs, ye will not believe,' we may infer that he himself 
found it necessary to supply his hearers at least with narratives of such 
wonders and signs. And at that distance of time, amongst the strangers 
of Ephesus, there was no one capable of controverting his statements." . . . 
" Looking rigidly at the merit of this gospel in point of morality, it is 
perhaps as inferior to Matthew in this respect, as it is superior in depth 
of feeling and pathos. There are few, if any, of those weighty moral 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



' — INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

which the New Testament writers describe the weakness and faults of 
the disciples ; not excepting some of the most eminent among the 
Apostles. Their 'slowness of heart,' (that is, dulness of understanding,) 
— their want of faith (trust) in their Master,— and their worldly ambition 
and jealousy among themselves, are spoken of without reserve, and as 
freely as the faults of their adversaries. This, and other points, would 
be very remarkable if met with in any one book ; but it is still more 
so, when the same character runs through all the books of the New 
Testament, which are no less than 27 distinct compositions, of several 
different kinds, written apparently at considerable intervals of time from 
each other, and which have come down to us as the works of no less 
than eight different authors. You might safely ask an unbeliever to 
point out the same number — or half the number — of writers in behalf of 
any Sect, Party, or System, all of them, without a single exception, 
writing with the same modest simplicity, and without any attempt to 
excuse, or to extol, and set off themselves."* 

4 'The picture drawn by the Evangelists is evidently an unstudied 
one. There is nothing in it of the nature of eulogium and panegyric. 
... If they had had the inclination, they do not seem to have had the 
ability, to draw a fictitious character of great moral beauty. They write 
like (what they were) plain, unpractised authors, without learning, or elo- 
quence, or skill in composition. "f 

The imputation of dishonesty, or of any kind of incompetency in the 
Evangelists, cannot"for an instant be admitted by any advocate of Chris- 
tianity ; but, except upon the ground of plenary inspiration, the natural 
manifestation of the varying characteristics of their own human disposi- 
tions, is so far a convincing sign of their genuineness, and adds greatly 
to the power of their concurrent testimony. 

" Taking the JSTew Testament as a whole, we are not disposed to deny 
that it bears upon the face of it many indications that its several writers 
were not entirely exempt from mental imperfection — but we contend that 
the imperfection which their works exhibit is perfectly compatible with 
the communication to men of infallible knowledge respecting God, his 
moral relation to us, his purposes with regard to us, and the religious 
duties which these things enforce on all who would attain unto eternal 
life. And if this be true, the record, equally with the revelation, satis- 
fies the spiritual need of man in its fullest extent. "J 



* "Whately's Christian Evidences, p. 67. f Ibid, p. 69. 
% Bases of Belief, p. 395- 



36 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. 

lessons of universal acceptation which we find Jesus delivering elsewhere. 
. . . This gospel, if alone, would leave the impression that belief in Jesus 
as the Christ, and the recognition of the high offices which the writer 
labours to attribute to him, is the chief obligation laid upon man. The 
commandment to love one another is certainly enforced with much strength 
and pathos ; but the commandment partakes too much of an exclusive 
spirit ; it is for the Christian sect alone ; it is not the language of wide 
philanthropy, 4 love all men' ; but, ' I pray not for the world, but for 
these whom thou hast given me out of the world.' "* 

XXTY. When we examine the Gospels in this manner, try- 

Relations of ^° J u dg e them simply on their own merits, without 

Miracles have not any supposed Divine inspiration; and seeking to realize 
the air of trust- the position of the writers and their inducements to mag- 
worthiness. n -jcy glory of their Master, whose character and suf- 

ferings, and the promises he held out to their spiritual ambition, had 
won them to his cause : we are not surprised to find them full of "won- 
derful works which he did." Miracles belong of necessity to a miraculous 
revelation : so the early disciples felt, and so also Paley well argues : 
" In whatever degree it is probable or not very improbable that a reve- 
lation should be communicated to mankind at all, in the same degree is 
it probable or not very improbable that miracles should be wrought, "t 
If our cultivated reason is shocked by the relation of them, it is because 
the very idea of Revelation is contrary to reason, and these results of it 
are a clear exposure, a reductio ad absurdum, of the principle at the base 
of it. But the question at present is how they stand as alleged facts. 
It is impossible here to enter upon a fair examination of them, but the 
following general objections to the miracles of Jesus may be urged against 
believing the gospel reports of them : 

' 1 1. Jesus himself put his miracles of healing upon a level with the 
performances of the Jewish exorcists. Matt. xn. 27. 

II. He recognized the attempts of others as real miracles, making 
no distinction between them and his own. Mark ix. 38, 39. 

III. He admits that there was more difficulty in performing some 
miracles than others. Matt. xvn. 21. 

IV. He generally required to see that the applicants fully believed 
in his miraculous power before he attempted the cure. Matt. ix. 2 ; 27. 
Mark vi. 5. 

V. The answers usually given by Jesus were of such a nature as to 
dismiss the applicants without any injury to his own credit, whatever 

* Origin of Christianity, pp. 181 ; 188-9 ; 200. See also on the composition of 
the Gospels, Mackay's Rise and Progress of Christianity, 1854. 
+ Paley's Evidences, vol. 1. p- 3. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



37 



— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

XXIV. "Christianity is not only confirmed by miracles, but is in 
itself, in its very essence, a miraculous religion. It is not a system which 
the human mind might have gathered, in the ordinary exercise of its 
powers, from the ordinary course of nature. Its doctrines, especially those 
which relate to its founder, claim for it the distinction of being a super- 
natural provision for the recovery of the human race. . . . We affirm, that 
when Jesus Christ came into the world, nature had failed to communi- 
cate instructions to men, in which, as intelligent beings, they had the 
deepest concern, and on which the full development of their highest facul- 
ties essentially depended ; and we affirm, that there was no prospect of 
relief from nature ; so that an exigence had occurred, in which addi- 
tional communications, supernatural lights, might rationally be expected 
from the Father of spirits."* 

"A pervading element of supernaturalism was necessary to give com- 
pleteness, authentication, and significance, to the symbol employed (by 
which Deity was represented in the person of J esus Christ) . . . Miracles 
serve to mark off his life from human life in general, as the medium 
by which God has condescended to disclose himself, and his love, to our 
hearts. . . . They are veritable flashings forth through him of the Al- 
mighty. They put the seal of God upon his life. . . Granted our need 
of a revelation of God to our affections — granted the fitness of a human 
life as the medium of such a revelation — and you grant also the neces- 
sity of miracles. . . All is homogeneous. We must accept all, or we 
must reject all. No miracles, no Christianity. "t " The manner of our 
Lord's miracles ... is like that of the great works of God — sublimely 
quiet. The supernaturalism of the gospels is not a noisy, clattering, 
egotistic thing. . . There is a silence in it that awes, and a gentleness 
that startles, the soul. . . The trumpet is never blown to call the world 
to witness it. The occasion usually turns up in the most incidental way. 
... It is anything but what we might have expected, if man's fancy or 
fanaticism had sketched and coloured the representation. And this view 
of the subject ought specially to be noted by those who ascribe the 
miraculous in Christ's memoirs to the after-touches of admiring and 
adoring followers. Pious passion does not paint in this severely sober 
style. The fervour which would infuse supernaturalism where there 
was none, would have infused more of it, and of a more ostentatious 
sort."$ 

" On the hypothesis that the Miracles of the New Testament were 
masterly frauds on men's senses committed at the time and by the par- 
ties supposed in the records, the infidel must believe, that a vast number 



* Channing's "Works, pp. 324. 326. Evidences of Revealed Religion. 
t Bases of Belief, pp. 186. 187. t Ibid. pp. 246. 248. 



38 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY, 



[christian revelation. — 

might be the result. Matt. vm. 13 ; ix. 29 j xv. 23 ; 28 ; Mark x. 52 ; 
J ohn ix. 7. 

YI. In Matthew and Mark, the more decided miracles, such as raising 
the dead, curing the blind, <fec, are admitted to have been done in secret. 
Matt. vm. 4 ; ix. 30 ; Mark v. 43 ; vn. 36. 

VII. The miracles were chiefly performed among the country people 
of Galilee, according to Matthew and Mark. 

VIII. When Jesus was asked to do a public miracle in attestation 
of his divine mission, he not only refused to do it, but did not even 
appeal to his previous miracles. Matt. xvi. 1-4 ; comp. Mark vm. 11 ; 
John vi. 30. It is true that Jesus is made to appeal to his miracles 
in answer to J ohn the Baptist's disciples, and several times in the dis- 
courses attributed to him by John v. 36 ; x. 38 ; xiv. 10. Yet the above 
instances are sufficient to show that he did not usually rely upon them 
as the means of convincing opponents. 

IX. In most of the narratives, the saying of Jesus and the incidents 
leading to it form the most conspicuous part ; the accompanying miracle 
is but a brief echo. Matt. xv. 21-28. 

X. None of those on whom the miracles were said to be performed 
come forward themselves to attest them in the subsequent part of the 
history, or play any conspicuous part in the affairs of the church, as 
gathered from the Acts and Epistles. The author of the Gospel of Nico- 
demus, which appeared at the end of the 3d century, has endeavoured to 
remedy the omission by making the centurion, the blind men, &c, give 
evidence before Pilate ; but this forgery only renders the absence of any 
historical testimony to the same effect the more striking. 

XI. None of the miracles produce any effect upon indisputable his- 
torical facts ; but events go on in a natural course without the slightest 
symptom of supernatural disturbance. The Romans keep possession of 
Judea ; Jesus is put to death as an innovator ; his followers increase like 
other sects, by means of proselytism. All the miraculous consists of 
mere accessory incidents, which may be shaken off without hurt to the 
integrity of profane history, or even to the chief features of the gospel 
history itself. 

XII. The supposed miracles had no effect on many of those who 
lived in the time of Jesus, and were most capable of appreciating them. 
John vii. 5 ; xn. 37 ; Matt. xi. 20 ; Mark vi. 52, comp. xvi. 14."* 

Of the miracles which are said to abound in the apostolic age, it 
is to be observed, that the low rank in which Paul places them appears 
inconsistent with the supposition of their being real and indubitable ones. 

XXV. The crowning miracle of the gospels, however, the 

The resurrection. resurrection of Christ, requires special consideration. 



* Origin of Christianity, chap, ix., condensed. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



39 



-INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

of apparent miracles — involving the most astounding phenomena — such 
as the instant restoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the 
resurrection of the dead — performed in open day, amidst multitudes of 
malignant enemies — imposed alike on all, and triumphed at once over 
the strongest predjudices and the deepest enmity ; — those who received 
them and those who rejected them differing only in the certainly not 
very trifling particular, as to whether they came from heaven or from 
hell. He must believe that those who were thus successful in this ex- 
traordinary conspiracy against men's senses and against common sense, 
were Galilean Jews, such as all history of the period represents them ; 
ignorant, obscure, illiterate, and, above all, previously bigoted, like all 
their countrymen, to the very system, of which, together with all other 
religions on the earth, they modestly meditated the abrogation ; he must 
believe that, appealing to these astounding frauds in the face both of 
J ews and Gentiles as an open evidence of the truth of a new revelation, 
and demanding on the strength of them that their countrymen should 
surrender a religion which they acknowledged to be divine, and that all 
other nations should abandon their scarcely less venerable systems of super- 
stition, they rapidly succeeded in both these very probable adventures ; 
and in a few years, though without arms, power, wealth, or science, were 
to an enormous extent victorious over all prejudice, philosophy, and 
persecution ; and in three centuries took nearly undisputed possession, 
amongst many nations, of the temples of the ejected deities. He must 
farther believe that the original performers, in these prodigious frauds 
on the world, acted not only without any assignable motive, but against 
all assignable motive ; that they maintained this uniform constancy in un- 
profitable falsehoods, not only together, but separately, in different 
countries, before different tribunals, under all sorts of examinations and 
cross-examinations, and in defiance of the gyves, the scourge, the axe, 
the cross, the stake ; that those whom they persuaded to join their enter- 
prise, persisted like themselves in the same obstinate belief of the same 
' cunningly devised' frauds ; and thoi^h they had many accomplices in 
their singular conspiracy, had the equally singular fortune to free them- 
selves and their coadjutors from all transient weakness towards their 
cause and treachery towards one another ; and, lastly, that these men, 
having, amidst all their ignorance, originality enough to invent the most 
pure and sublime system of morality which the world has ever listened 
to, had, amidst all their conscious villainy, the effrontery to preach it, and 
which is more extraordinary, the inconsistency to practise it !" * 

XXV. "The peculiar value of the history of the resurrection of Christ 
as an evidence of Christianity, is this : That it is completely certain, that 



* Reason and Faith, Rogers' Essays. Vol, II. p. 284-6. 



40 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.- 

The following are reasons for finding incredible the accounts of his ap- 
pearances after death : 

"I. Not one of them conies down to us attested in such a manner 
as would be commonly thought sufficient to establish a fact of importance. 
With the exception of John, (for a faithful report of whose testimony 
we depend on the integrity of the Ephesian church,) not one of the sup- 
posed eye-witnesses gives direct evidence. Matthew says that Mary 
Magdelene saw Jesus ; Paul says the same for Peter ; Luke says that 
he appeared to Cleopas ; the author of the ' Gospel according to the 
Hebrews' speaks for James ; and in each case the probability is that the 
account had passed through many intermediate narrators. The accounts 
individually are insufficient evidence ; nor can they together make up a 
cumulative proof, because they proceed from witnesses nominally inde- 
pendent, but in reality influenced by the same views and feelings. 
II. These accounts present irreconcilable contradictions. III. They re- 
semble very much other tales of apparitions in the sudden coming and 
vanishing of Jesus. IV. It has been very common in the Jewish and 
Christian, as well as other churches, for those who wished to enforce a 
particular precept or doctrine to say that some eminent prophet, angel, 
or saint, had appeared to reveal it to them. Jesus appears to the two 
disciples, to tell them that he suffered in fulfilment of the prophecies ; to 
the eleven in Galilee, in order to give them the baptismal commission to 
all nations ; to the disciples at Jerusalem, to give them the power of re- 
mitting or retaining sins ; and to Thomas, to proclaim the necessity of 
believing in his resurrection without having seen him. V. There were 
many who disbelieved these accounts in the earliest times. YI. Most 
of the attestations of the resurrection in the apostolic writings do not of 
necessity apply to those accounts of his appearance, but to the general 
doctrine that he was risen, which might be in an invisible or spiritual 
manner. And those which bear a further sense seem to allude to stories 
of visions. VII. The ascension of Jesus into heaven is related only by 
Luke, and by the author of the last twelve verses of Mark. * It is alluded 
to John xx. 17, but no account is given of it. . . . Thus one of the 
Evangelists says not a word concerning it ; another, supposed to have 
been one of the witnesses, stops short where he approaches it ; and only 
those two of the four who are allowed not to have been eye-witnesses 
(and only one of them, if Mark did not write the last 12 verses) give 
any account of it. The belief that Jesus must have ascended into heaven 
like Enoch and Elijah was likely to give rise to some dramatic descrip- 
tions of the event, as of a real scene ; and one highly-coloured repre- 
sentation has been preserved or drawn by Luke."f 

* "It is remarkable that, if these 12 verses be omitted, as we have seen was 
generally done in the early copies, Mark, the follower of Peter, relates neither the 
miraculous birth, the resurrection, nor the ascension of Christ." 

f Origin of Christianity, p. 246-8. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



41 



-INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

the Apostles and first teachers of Christianity asserted the fact. And this 
would have been certain if the four gospels had been lost, or never written. 
Every piece of scripture recognizes the resurrection. Every epistle and 
writing from that age to the present, concur in representing the resur- 
rection of Christ as part of his history, received without doubt or dis- 
agreement by all who called themselves Christians, as alleged from the 
beginning by the propagators of the institution, and alleged as the centre 
of their testimony. . . . That the apostles knowingly published a false- 
hood, is pretty generally given up. . . . The solution more deserving of 
notice is that which would resolve the conduct of the apostles into 
enthusiasm ; which would class the evidence of Christ's resurrection with 
the numerous stories that are extant of the apparitions of dead men. 
But it was not one person, but many, who saw him ; they saw him 
not only separately, but together, not only by night but by day, not at 
a distance but near, not once but several times ; they touched him, con- 
versed with him, eat with him, examined his person to satisfy their 
doubts. But all this stands, I admit, upon the credit of our records. 
I would answer, therefore, the insinuation of enthusiasm, by a circum- 
stance which arises out of the nature of the thing, and the reality of 
which must be confessed by all : viz., the non-production of the dead 
body. It is related in the history, what indeed the story of the resur- 
rection necessarily implies, that the corpse was missing out of the sepul- 
chre : it is related also in the history, that the Jews reported that the 
followers of Christ had stolen it away. And this, though loaded with 
improbabilities, was the most credible account that could be given of the 
matter. But it proceeds on the supposition of fraud ... what account 
can be given of the body, upon the supposition of enthusiasm ? All ac- 
counts of spectres leave the body in the grave. The presence and ab- 
sence of the dead body are alike inconsistent with the hypothesis of 
enthusiasm : for if present, it must have cured their enthusiasm at once ; 
if absent, fraud, not enthusiam, must have carried it away. It is evi- 
dent that if his body could have been found, the Jews would have 
produced it, as the shortest and completest answer to the whole story.""* 
"The Apostle Paul may be set down as an enthusiast, but he will 
hardly be accounted dishonest, even by the most inveterate scepticism. 
His own vision of the Lord may be regarded as a mere illusion of an 
over-wrought brain, but when he sums up the proof of Christ's resur- 
rection to the Corinthian church, he surely states facts of which he had 
full cognizance. He declares, without any doubt, or circumlocution, that 
Christ was seen after his resurrection by above 500 brethren at once, 
most of whom, he avers, were still alive at the time of his writing. 
Such a statement, in such terms, and from such a man, implies that he 

* Paley's Evidences. Part n. chap. vni. [This argument is met in O. 35.] 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.- 

The manner in which the resurrection is spoken of in the Epistles 
is very explanatory of the subject. The history of the Apostles in the 
Acts testifies that the main theme of their early preaching was that "Jesus 
was raised from the dead by the power of God f but only in one pas- 
sage, (Acts x. 40, 41,) is Peter made to say that the witnesses had 
actually seen Jesus : and this is merely the report of a speech, such as 
might well have been supposed to be uttered by Peter 40 years after- 
wards. In the 1st Epistle of Peter (supposing it to be genuine,) "the 
language is that of a man who sincerely believed that Christ had been 
raised from the dead; but the testimony to his having appeared again 
in a bodily form is wanting. The writer does not say or imply that he 
had seen Jesus alive again ; and in verses 7 and 13, chap, i., he speaks 
of his appearing as an event still to come. The Epistle of James does 
not mention the resurrection of Jesus ; neither do those of John and 
Jude allude to it." "Paul did not join the church till some time after 
the death of Jesus, and could therefore only say what he had been told 
concerning his resurrection ; but as he was the founder of Gentile Chris- 
tianity, the nature of his testimony forms an important feature in the 
inquiry. The grounds on which he embraced the cause of the church 
were, according to his own statement, the direction of the Holy Spirit, 
and his belief that the Messiahship of Jesus fulfilled the prophets. . . . 
He nowhere states that his conversion was owing to the strong evidence 
which the followers of Jesus were able to bring of their Master's miracles 
and appearance since his death ; for he says, that Peter, James, and 
John, who were the very persons to give such information, added nothing 
to him. (Gal. n. 6. 9.) ... He is so anxious to make it appear that his 
own doctrine was mainly original, and independent of the assistance of 
those followers and relations of Christ — those to whom Christ himself 
had given instructions how and what to preach — that he says he com- 
municated his Gospel to them. We may therefore conclude, that in ad- 
dition to the slight information which he might have obtained of Christ's 
history, whilst persecuting the church, ... he owed his conversion to his 
own reflections, to visions,' and to his interpretation of the Scriptures. 
These sources are enough to account for the doctrines which he preached ; 
the ideas that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus, that he had 
been raised from the dead, and was soon to appear, having been rendered 
notorious by the preaching of the disciples, his own resources enabled 
Paul to complete the scheme on which he mainly insists in his writings, 
viz., that faith in this Messiah superseded the law of Moses, and per- 
mitted an union between Jews and Gentiles. 



* Origin of Christianity, pp. 208 ; 210—213. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



4o 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

is deposing to what he is consciously able to verify. He mentions also 
that the risen Lord was seen of Peter, of James, and of all the apostles. 
So direct an assertion would never have been made by one who had so 
good an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the facts of the 
case, during his fifteen days' residence with Peter, but upon authority 
deemed by him to be perfectly trustworthy. But this is not all. Peter's 
written testimony to the fact of Christ's resurrection we have in his own 
undisputed epistle. John's belief in it, even if it were true that he did 
not write the gospel which has been uniformly ascribed to him, pervades 
his first epistle. The letter of James, and also that of Jude, imply their 
faith. We have the testimony of James, the brother of Jesus, in his 
martyrdom by Herod. The labours of the other apostles sufficiently 
attest their unwavering belief in the fundamental fact of Christianity. 
So that although we have not in our hands the actual depositions of all 
these witnesses, we have proof enough that they believed that Christ 
had risen from the dead."* 

"And they were sincere believers. Their lives prove this. ... Now, 
on the hypothesis that Christ did not rise, this agreement, strength, and 
persistency of belief, is, to say the least of it, extraordinary. His death 
staggered all their previous notions of the Messianic reign. A fancy that 
he had appeared to them after death would scarcely have sufficed so to 
change the views, hopes, desires, and determinations of all of them, as 
to set them at once upon a totally different track, and keep them on 
it, in spite of all that they had to encounter therein, up to the very 
hour of their departure. . . . Nor was this a case in which further ques- 
tion might not have led at once to the resolution of all doubts. ... In 
regard to the resurrection, supposing their belief in it to have been 
hastily, although honestly formed, but really at variance with fact, they 
must have known that it was easy enough to set themselves right. The 
dead body of Jesus, in such case, must have remained in the possession 
of either his enemies or his friends. If of his enemies, it is certain that 
it would have been produced ... if of friends, surely it would have been 
accessible to them. Strange that no one of them appears to have thought 
of this decisive test of the reality of their dreams or visions !"t 



* Bases of Belief, pp. 263. 264. + Ibid. pp. 264-267. 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.— 
XXVI. Full recognition being made of the general excellence 

Morality of the °^ Christian morality as a popular system, and especially 
gospels is not ai- of its adaptation to the wants of the time ; it must be 
together phiioso- urged that it does not everywhere show itself founded upon 
phicaiiy true . a r ight and philosophical knowledge of human nature. 

The great general principles, of trust in God and self-subjugation to 
bear and do His will, of inward purity, and of love to one's neighbour 
as oneself, may truly be said to be divine, since every improvement in 
the moral condition of mankind tends to the fulfilling of them : even 
these, however, requiring a continual guard by our reason, lest they 
should fall into abuse. For the first has been carried to unwise excess 
in Mahomedanism ; the second in monkish asceticism ; and the third is 
apt to cause self-deception and a confused notion of duty, because as a 
command it is impossible to be obeyed, at least in the present condition 
of humanity. 

Trust in God can be called a philosophic prin- 
trust in God ; ciple only so long as the title of Deity is taken in an 
indefinite sense to represent the Power or Order, moral and physical, 
that rules in the universe. When, as eminently in Christianity, God 
means a personal Being, who has a providential care of his creatures, 
trust in him necessarily leads to an abandonment of self-exertion. 

The doctrine of Prayer, — "Ask and it shall be given 
prayer; you" — necessarily accompanies the idea of a Heavenly 

Father, loving and watching over his children : — but in experience it is 
not true, and in philosophy it would be an upsetting of all the laws of 
nature, and a check to all self-help on the part of man. The doctrine 
of a God hearing prayer, which attained its greatest beauty in the Chris- 
tian religion, is a standing impediment in the way of the education of 
humanity. So long as men think they can obtain what is desirable by 
asking for it, they will never exert themselves ; and this is true of moral 
and spiritual good, as well as physical.* 

The doctrine of forgiveness of sins, (taking it now 
forgiveness of simply as delivered in the sermon on the mount, with- 
&ins > out any reference to sacrificial atonement,) strictly con- 

sidered, does not deserve philosophic approbation. ' 'If ye forgive not 
men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours", is a very 
low statement of the principle ; — to refrain from punishing them our- 
selves because God will punish them, is in fact no forgiveness at all ; 
— while the broad injunction, that sounds so beautiful as the indolent 
poetry of benevolence, "Love your enemies, that ye may be the children 

* See on this and other following topics Greg's Creed of Christendom, chapter on 
Christian Eclecticism. See also, on prayer and self-help, The Philosophy of Necessity, 
by Charles Bray. 1841. Vol. I. pp. 94, 218; and Combe's Constitution of Man, 
passim. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



45 



— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

XXVI. "Resignation to the will of God is the whole of piety: it 
includes in it all that is good, and is a source of the most settled quiet 
and composure of mind. There is the general principle of submission 
in our nature. . . . Our resignation to the will of God may be said to be 
perfect, when our will is lost and resolved up into his ; when we rest 
in his will as our end, as being itself most just and right and good."* 

" Christianity lays us under new obligations to a good life, as by it 
the will of God is more clearly revealed, and as it affords additional 
motives to the practice of it, over and above those which arise out of 
the nature of virtue and vice ; I might add, as our Saviour has set us 
a perfect example of goodness in our nature. Now love and charity is 
plainly the thing in which he has placed his religion ; in which, there- 
fore, we must place ours. He hath at once enjoined it upon us by way of 
command with peculiar force ; and by his example, as having undertaken 
the work of our salvation out of pure love and good-will to mankind." 
"Religion, from whence arises our strongest obligation to benevolence, 
is so far from disowning the principle of self-love, that it often addresses 
itself to that very principle, and always to the mind in that state when 
reason presides." . . . "Supposing a distinct meaning and propriety in the 
words as thyself, the precept (to love our neighbours as ourselves) will 
admit of any of these senses : that we bear the same hind of affection 
to our neighbour, as we do to ourselves : or, that the love we bear to 
our neighbour should have some certain proportion or other to self- 
love : or, lastly, that it should bear the particular proportion of equality, 
that it be in the same degree." If the latter, "it would not be attended 
with those consequences, which perhaps may be thought to follow from 
it. . . Though there were an equality of affection, yet regard to our- 
selves would be, and ought to be, more prevalent than attention to the 
concerns of others. . . Moral obligations can extend no further than 
to natural possibilities. It fully appears, that though we were to love 
our neighbour in the same degree as ourselves, so far as this is possible ; 
yet the care of ourselves, the individual, would not be neglected ; the 
danger of which seems the only objection against understanding the pre- 
cept in this strict sense. "t 

A heart touched by religion cannot but hold communion with God. 
From no low consideration of utility, but from the simple instinct ana- 
logous to that of a child, the creature must pour forth its wants, its 
gratitude, its confidence, its love. "While I thus feel Thy sacred spirit 
breathing on my heart, and exciting these fervours of love to Thee, I 
cannot doubt it any more than I can doubt the reality of this animal 
life. . . . Surely if ever my palate felt thirst, my soul thirsteth after God. 
... If ever this wearied body knew what it was to wish for refreshment, 

* Butler's Sermons. 1839. pp. 164. 165. Upon the Love of God. 
t Ibid. pp. 139. 138. 141. 147. Upon the Love of our Neighbour. 



46 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. 

of Him who maketh his sun to shine on the evil and on the good", 
will bear no practical application. The only principle that cannot be 
abused is Justice ; and the idea of Justice cannot be better popularly- 
explained than in the far nobler precept, "Do unto others as ye would 
that they should do unto you". Apply this to the former, and does 
not our moral sense revolt against the treatment for ourselves of being 
dealt with alike for our crimes and our virtues ? 

That God should forgive sins at all, is an idea belonging to the arti- 
ficial systems of theology. In nature, no sin is forgiven. Moral, as well 
as physical transgressions, draw after them their inevitable consequences, 
since repentance, while it modifies the future, can never undo the past. 
And we see that it is best it should be so ; for thus only experience can 
be gained, and real amendment of character produced. The perception of 
the certainty of consequences, subject to no arbitrary deviation, is the 
real and effectual means of knowing the evil of sin. But theology sup- 
poses that in addition to the natural consequences of sin, which in the 
eye of reason are its proper and only punishment, there is also excited 
the Divine wrath, which has to be placated ; — a human and most un- 
worthy conception of Deity ; — and thus the personal offence given to God 
must be atoned for by specially inflicted spiritual suffering, quite of another 
kind and degree from worldly retribution. God, who has been personally 
offended, must personally remit the penalty, in order that the culprit 
may be, not surely as he was before, for there are still the human results 
of sin hanging about him, but only freed from the judicial, arbitrary, 
revengeful sentence of (eternal ?) alienation from Divine favour. All this 
is merely theological : when the low, anthropomorphic ideas of God are 
swept away, the whole falls to the ground, and there is no such thing 
remaining as forgiveness of sins. 

Neither, if we analyse our own feelings, will it be seen, that a man 
can ever properly forgive his fellow-man, i.e., regard an offender as if 
the offence had not been committed. True, he may possibly not think 
the worse of him, he may even in some circumstances like him the better 
for it, or his previous feeling may be merely strengthened and confirmed ; 
but no human action is without producing some effect, — it can never be 
as if it had not been. 

Yet mercy is in no degree abolished by this view. Love to our neigh- 
bours, genuine as that we bear to ourselves, will always make us tender 
of giving unnecessary pain ; and pain that is wholesome and ameliorat- 
ing we should never shun for others any more than for ourselves. Hence 
Love, which is not in any way contradictory to Justice, but is on the 
contrary "the fulfilling of the whole law", is the pure essence of 
Christian morality, which will only work the more effectually for being 
freed from the natural and human mistakes which were not yet cleared 
away from it in an age farther from perfect enlightenment than our own. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY, 



47 



■INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

my soul with, sweet acquiescence rests upon thy gracious bosom, O my 
heavenly Father ; and if ever I saw the face of a beloved friend with 
complacency and joy, I rejoice in beholding Thy face, O Lord, and in 
calling Thee my Father in Christ. Such Thou art, and such Thou wilt 
be, for time and for eternity. What have I more to do, but to commit 
myself to Thee for both ? leaving it to Thee to choose mine inherit- 
ance, and to order my affairs for me, while all my business is to serve 
Thee, and all my delight to praise Thee."* 

" The offences which we are all guilty of against God, and the in- 
juries which men do to each other, are often mentioned together : and, 
making allowances for the infinite distance between the Majesty of Heaven, 
and a frail mortal, and likewise for this, that he cannot possibly be af- 
fected or moved as we are ; offences committed by others against our- 
selves, and the manner in which we are apt to be affected with them, 
give a real occasion for calling to mind our own sins against God. Now 
there is an apprehension and presentiment, natural to mankind, that we 
ourselves, shall one time or other be dealt with as we deal with others ; 
and a peculiar acquiescence in, and feeling of, the equity and justice of 
this equal distribution. . . . Let any one read our Saviour's parable of 
the 6 king who took account of his servants' ;f and the equity and Tight- 
ness of the sentence which was passed upon him who was unmerciful to 
his fellow-servant, will be felt. There is somewhat in human nature, 
which accords to and fall» in with that method of determination. . . . 
Could anything raise more dreadful apprehensions of the (final) judg- 
ment, than the reflection that you had been without mercy towards those 
who had offended you ? . . . And these natural apprehensions are autho- 
rised by our Saviour's application of the parable. "J 

"The law of God is the expression of his own moral perfection, 
and he cannot permit it to be depreciated with impunity.... A lower 
requirement cannot be conceived, without charging God with indiffer- 
ence to his perfection and dereliction of bis honour. What does his law 
demand, but that he should be loved and honoured proportionally to his 
merit V "A violation of his claims on the entire and devoted obe- 
dience of his rational creatures, infinitely superior to those of any earthly 
benefactor, has a proportionate criminality ; and on the principles of 
equal justice, deserves an adequate punishment." " The righteousness 
of the requirement, and the correspondent equity of its sanction, are 
shewn forth in their just glory by the obedience unto death of Jesus the 
Son of God. Put under the law, he hath magnified it and made it 
honourable, and is become the end of the law for righteousness to every 
one that believeth."§ 

* Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. 1792. p. 279. chap. 27. 
f Matt, xviii. J Butler's Sermons, p. 112. Upon Forgiveness of Injuries. 
§ Dr. Pye Smith's Four Discourses on Sacrifice and Atonement. 2d. Ed. 1842. 
pp. 35. 48. 



•16 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.- 
It is generally acknowledged that there is little, if 
demand of inward anything, strictly original in the morality of Jesus ; that 
purity (borrowed nearly the whole of the Gospel precepts are to be found 
from the Essenes). ^ Testament, the book of Ecclesiasticus, and the 

most ancient Rabbinical writings :* — the selection of which, indeed, and 
some alterations and additions, show the independent judgment of Jesus, 
who also delivered them with greater force, and the authority of a con- 
scious prophet. His original genius and the moral strength of his mind 
are proved also by his comparative disregard of ceremonies. To be able 
to say, in contradiction to the ideas of the age, "to eat with unwashen 
hands defileth not a man", and "man was not made for the Sabbath, 
but the Sabbath for man", shows the energy of a master mind, that 
would make a law for itself; and his vehement denunciations against 
the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, the High established clergy of the land, 
indicates the fearless integrity of a moral reformer : — still, in all this 
there is no evidence of superhuman wisdom. The demand for inward 
purity, which gives the tone of spiritual elevation to his teaching, was 
peculiar to the school of Essenes, to which it is hardly to be doubted 
that Jesus originally belonged. Philo says of them (the Essenes) that 
"they have attained the highest holiness in the worship of God, not by 
sacrificing animals, but by cultivating purity of heart." But this purity 
of heart, whose aim and reward is the contemplation of Deity, has the 
necessary effect of drawing away the thoughts from the supposed contami- 
nation of worldly affairs. Jesus did not indeed contemn the natural af- 
fections, — though his peculiar object made him cut himself off from all 
domestic relations, and consequently he who has been represented as set ex- 
pressly before us as a model in all the affairs of life, never was in a position 
to display the virtues most essential to the well-being of mankind in ge- 
neral ; — but the spirit of asceticism is shown in many of his precepts, 
inculcating a love of poverty and bodily deprivations, as if they were 
good for their own sake, and what may be called an excessive heavenly- 
mhidedness, inconsistent with the innocent and really beneficial enjoyment 
of this life.+ The precept "take no thought for the morrow" is not 
sound doctrine, but an unwholesome exaggeration of true morality, based 
upon the narrow and false Jewish notion, that the favourite children of 
God were under the providential care of Heaven, and therefore needed 
not the merely GentHe virtue of prudence. "Lay not up for yourselves 1 
treasures on earth" is an undue contemning of the present world, and 
based upon a merely selfish motive of refined self-interest. " Rejoice 
when men persecute you" is worse, for it includes an unbenevolent satisfac- 
tion in, or at least indifference to, the guilt of fellow-beings. In general, 
of the motives assigned for virtue, "great shall be your reward in 
heaven", is of a selfish nature ; and the higher one, to promote the glory 



* See Origin of Christianity, chap. xvn. 

f This ascetic tone is especially conspicuous in Luke. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



49 



■INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

"Since no passion God hath endued us with can be in itself evil; 
and yet since men frequently indulge a passion in such ways and degrees 
that at length it becomes quite another thing from what it was originally 
in our nature ; and those vices of malice and revenge in particular take 
their occasion from the natural passion of resentment : it will be needful 
to trace this up to its original, and when we know what the passion is 
in itself, and the ends of it, we shall easily see, what are the abuses of 
it, in which malice and revenge consist ; and which are so strongly for- 
bidden." "The precepts to forgive, and to love our enemies, do not 
relate to general indignation against injury and the authors of it, but to 
this feeling, or resentment when raised by private or personal injury." 
"It is easy to see what is the degree in which we are commanded to love 
our enemies. It were well if it could as easily be reduced to practice. 
It cannot be imagined, that we are required to love them with any peculiar 
kind of affection. But suppose the person injured to have a due natural 
sense of the injury, and no more ; he ought to be affected towards the 
person in the same way any good men, uninterested in the case, would 
be ; if they had the same just sense, which we have supposed the injured 
person to have, of the fault : after which there will yet remain real good- 
will towards the offender."* 

"I see every where in Christianity the great design of liberating 
and raising the human mind. I see nothing narrowing or depressing, 
nothing of the littleness of the systems which human fear, and craft, 
and ambition have engendered. I meet there no minute legislation, no 
descending to precise details, no arbitrary injunctions, no yoke of cere- 
monies, no outward religion. Every thing breathes freedom, liberality, 
enlargement. ... I find it inculcating an enlarged spirit of piety and 
philanthropy, leaving each of us to manifest this spirit according to the 
monitions of his individual conscience ; calling the soul to freedom and 
power, by calling it to guard against the senses, the passions, the appe- 
tites, through which it is chained, enfeebled, destroyed ; aiming to give 
the mind power over the outward world, to make it superior to events, 
to suffering, to material nature, to persecution, to death ; aiming to give 
the mind power over itself, to invest it with inward sovereignty, to 
call forth within us a mighty energy for our own elevation." "Man 
is glorious and happy, not by what he has, but by what he is. He can 
receive nothing better or nobler than the unfolding of his own spiritual 
nature. The highest existence in the universe is Mind ; for God is 
mind ; and the development of that principle which assimilates us to God, 
must be our supreme good. The omnipotent Creator, we have reason 
to think, can bestow nothing greater than intelligence, love, rectitude, 
energy of will and of benevolent action ; for these are the splendours 
of his own nature. We adore him for these. In imparting these, he 
imparts, as it were, himself. We are too apt to look abroad for good. 

* Butler's Sermons, pp. 93. 102. 108. 
E 



no 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. 

of God, is founded on human ideas of Deity, and is much inferior to 
the love of virtue for its own sake, or for the good done to mankind. 
(The motive, "that ye may be the children of your Father," is not 
included in this remark, being one of the purest and highest in the New 
Testament.) And, notably, there is a pervading tone of falseness given 
to the morality of Jesus and his apostles, by the grand error under which 
they lay that the end of the world was at hand, and consequently that 
it was not worth while to regard the temporal concerns so speedily to 
vanish away. 

XXVII. When we go on to consider the morality of Chris- 

The Atonement tianity as developed in the Epistles, where the atoning 
is altogether con- sacrifice of Christ begins to be regarded as the only means 
trary to natural G f reconciliation with God, our natural sense of what is 
just and right is much more shocked, or rather is alto- 
gether confounded : — not, indeed, that the whole tremendous doctrine 
of human depravity, of election and reprobation, with eternal torments 
as the meed of the greater portion of the race for Adam's single trans- 
gression, and all its logical concatenation of dogmas consistent in their 
inconsistency with human nature, — not that all these were fully deve- 
loped in the mind of Paul, though his creative genius laid the germs 
of them, or rather moulded them out of already formed notions of the 
efficacy of sacrifice held both by Jews and Heathens. * It is hardly need- 
ful to expose the unmoral nature of this doctrine, since its manifest effect 
is to make its believers undervalue morality. With them necessarily grace 
is beyond and above works ; and the idea, so gross and so perverted, 
that • righteousness can be imputed, is to such a degree opposed to all 
natural sense of justice, as to make any right perception of true morality 
impossible so long as it remains a film upon the eye of the mind, a clog 
upon the action of conscience. If, as has been urged, the idea of for- 
giveness at all is contrary to nature, much more obviously the doctrine 
of forgiveness on account pf the merits and for the sake of another, is 
totally at variance with the principle of right implanted within us, and 
purely theological and artificial. It rests upon the assumption — which 
seems the result of an impatience for explanation of those deficiencies 
which the intelligent consciousness of man, as soon as ever it was awakened, 
made him perceive in himself, in common with the outward world, and 
which rightly ought only to urge him on to conquer them, — that man 
is not as God made him, since God must have wished his creature to 
be perfect at once, as man himself wishes it ; that God, like himself, 
must be displeased, disappointed, with his imperfection, — nay, as crouch- 
ing superstition whispers, must be angry with the poor incompetent crea- 
ture that he has made : whence, to this undisciplined mode of thinking, 

* See Mackay's Progress of the Intellect, as exemplified in the religious develop- 
ment of the Greeks and Hebrews. Vol. n. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



51 



-INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

But the only true good is within. In this outward universe, magnificent 
as it is, in the bright day and the starry night, in the earth and the 
skies, we can discover nothing so vast as thought, so strong as the un- 
conquerable purpose of duty, so sublime as the spirit of disinterested- 
ness and self-sacrifice. A mind which withstands all the powers of the 
outward universe, all the pains which fire and sword and storm can in- 
flict, rather than swerve from uprightness, is nobler than the universe. 
"Why will we not learn the glory of the soul ? We are seeking a foreign 
good. But we all possess within us what is of more worth than the ex- 
ternal creation. For this outward system is the product of Mind. All 
its harmony, beauty, and beneficent influences, are the fruits and mani- 
festations of Thought and Love ; and is it not nobler and happier, to be 
enriched with these energies, from which the universe springs, and to 
which it owes its magnificence, than to possess the universe itself ? It is 
not what we have, but what we are, which constitutes our glory and 
felicity. Philosophers teach us, that the mind creates the beauty which 
it enjoys in nature ; and we all know that, when abandoned to evil 
passions, it can blot out this beauty, and spread over the fairest scenes 
the gloom of a dungeon. . . . The true friend and Saviour, is not he who 
acts for us abroad, but who acts within, who sets the soul free, touches 
the springs of thought and affection, binds us to God, and by assimila- 
ting us to the Creator, brings us into harmony with the creation. Thus 
the end which we have ascribed to Christ, is the most glorious and benefi- 
cent which can be accomplished by any power on earth or in heaven."* 

XXVII. "It is clearly contrary to all our notions of government, 
as well as to what is, in fact, the general constitution of nature, to sup- 
pose, that doing well for the future should, in all cases, prevent all the 
judicial bad consequences of haviDg done evil, or all the punishment 
annexed to disobedience. . And though the efficacy of repentance itself 
alone, to prevent what mankind had rendered themselves obnoxious to, 
and recover what they had forfeited, is now insisted upon, in opposition 
to Christianity ; yet by the general prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices 
over the heathen world, this notion of repentance alone being sufficient 
to expiate guilt, appears to be contrary to the general sense of mankind. 
Upon the whole then : had the laws, the general laws of God's govern- 
ment been permitted to operate, without any interposition in our belief, 
the future punishment, for aught we know to the contrary, or have any 
reason to think, must inevitably have followed, notwithstanding any thing 
we could have done to prevent it. ISTow : In this darkness, or this light 
of nature, call it which you please, revelation comes in ; confirms every 
doubting fear, which could enter into the heart of man, concerning the 
future unprevented consequence of wickedness : supposes the world to 
be in a state of ruin (a supposition which seems the very ground of the 

* Channing's Works, pp. 382, 360. The great purpose of Christianity. 



52 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation, — 

it seemed the shortest, surest road to the desired perfection, — or rather 
to the supposed fruits of it, an evasion devised by a superstition the 
counterpart of the former, — that God should effect it by his own easy 
act of gracious Will ; an idea which thence blended itself with the sub- 
lime one of Voluntary Self- Sacrifice. 



XXVIII. Besides its moral precepts, Christianity is said to offer 

The character us a perfect model of human virtue in the character of 
of Christ is not Christ. But if Christ was a Divine Being, or even merely 
a specially inspired and providentially attended human, 
being, he is manifestly beyond our power of imitation. If the common 
Christian view be so far departed from, as to say, that his power and 
knowledge may both be limited, yet that his character is perfect : still, 
even this supposes him a miraculously gifted being, and therefore above 
our sphere. Nor in his circumstances any more than in his supposed 
nature, could he be made a model by ordinary men. As a prophet, as 
the Messiah, he can be revered, not imitated. Of his private life, where 
his example would be useful, almost all we know is that he abjured all 
domestic ties. All we can learn of him gives the conviction that his 
character was great and good in the highest degree ; but this we gather 
more from the impression he left upon his disciples than from any means 
of forming our own judgment. In some points the panegyric heaped upon 
him appears strained and inappropriate, as with regard to his humility 
and self-devotion. Setting aside the orthodox view, in which he had 
nothing to do with any human virtue, — and it must be remembered that 
it was in this view that his humility was praised by the apostles, the 
humility of a superangelic being in condescending to be made flesh : — 
there was no sign of humility in believing himself to be the chosen One 
of God, whether it were a true intuition, or a fanatical delusion ; neither 
was it a sacrifice of self in the highest sense, to bear the trials of dis- 
appointment, isolation, and personal deprivation, incident to the life 
of a public reformer, for a few years, and the pangs of crucifixion for a 
few hours, with the prospect of reigning through the ages of eternity at 
the right hand of God, the Judge and worshipped Saviour of the world.* 



* See the chapters on the Character, views, and doctrine of Jesus in Hennell's 
Origin of Christianity, and on The moral perfection of Jesus in Newman's Phases of 
Faith, 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



53 



— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

Christian dispensation, and which, if not provable by reason, yet is in 
no wise contrary to it) ; teaches us too, that the rules of the divine go- 
vernment are such, as not to admit of pardon immediately and directly 
upon repentance, or by the sole efficacy of it : but then teaches at the 
same time, what nature might justly have hoped, that the moral govern- 
ment of the universe was not so rigid, but that there was room for an 
interposition, to avert the fatal consequences of vice : which therefore, 
by this means, does admit of pardon. Revelation teaches us, that the 
unknown laws of God's more general government, no less than the par- 
ticular laws by which we experience he governs us at present, are com- 
passionate, as well as good in the more general notion of goodness : and 
that he hath mercifully provided, that there should be an interposition 
to prevent the destruction of human kind ; whatever that destruction 
unprevented would have been. * God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him', — not, to be sure 
in a speculative, but in a practical sense, — ( should not perish' : gave his 
Son in the same way of goodness to the world, as he affords particular 
persons the friendly assistance of their fellow creatures : when without 
it, their temporal ruin would be the certain consequence of their follies : 
though in a transcendent and infinitely higher degree. And the Son of 
God loved us. . . and interposed in such a manner as was necessary and 
effectual to prevent that execution of justice upon sinners, which God 
had appointed should otherwise have been executed upon them : or in 
such a manner, as to prevent that punishment from actually following, 
which, according to the general laws of divine government, must have 
followed the sins of the world, had it not been for such interposition."* 



XXVIII. "Jesus Christ has 'declared' God to Man, not as a 
prophet merely, but as (what Paul calls him in the Epistle to the Co- 
lossians) c the Image of the invisible God ;" — not merely by announcing 
the divine will, but by manifesting, as far as our feeble capacities will 
permit, the divine glory, and shadowing forth the attributes of the in- 
visible and unsearchable God. And this for two purposes most important 
to mankind ; 1st, by a softened and endearing, as well as impressive 
manifestation of the Deity, to aid and exalt our piety, engaging our 
affections in the cause of religion ; and 2dly, by a bright example of 
superhuman virtue, seconded by the promise of spiritual aid, to instruct 
and encourage us in our duty — to illuminate and direct our Christian 
course — to purify and to elevate our nature. The one purpose, in short, 
may be said to have been, to bring down God to Man ; ^the other, to 
lift up Man towards God." "Many, it is true, of the qualities which 
our Lord displayed, such as his patience under provocation, and fortitude 
against pain and danger, are such as can belong to Him in his human 
nature alone, and can present us but a very faint shadow of the attributes 
of God, considered as such ; but still these are attributes of one and the 

* Butler's Analogy. Part II. chap. v. sec. iv. v. p. 214. 



54 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[CHRISTIAN REVELATION.- 

XXIX. It is also alleged as a main object of the Christian 

Christianity is revelation to bring life and immortality to light, and to 
a revelation of proclaim a future righteous retribution. It must be re- 
immortality only peated that the evidence on behalf of the resurrection 
of Christ, (which is the grand sanction and confirmation 
offered by Christianity to a doctrine, be it remembered, already firmly 
believed by the Pharisaic Jews, before the appearance of Christ,) is so 
unsatisfactory when faithfully examined, as to lead enlightened men in 
general to fall back upon the natural proofs of immortality as after all 
the strongest and most reliable : and this is not only for the critical 
doubts respecting it, but also on such grounds as, that — the resurrection 
of Christ as a divinely-appointed, or much more as a divine being, is 
no proof of ours ; — his rising again with the same mortal body, whereas 
we know that ours are dispersed to atoms, makes his resurrection of a 
quite different kind from what ours must be ; — and the fact of its being 
a special miracle that was required to raise Jesus, tends to show that in 
the natural order of things as laid down for ordinary men there would 
be no resurrection at all. Therefore the Jewish notions perpetuated in 
the 'apostolic narrative, in fact weaken the belief in immortality to 
thoughtful men of the present age. It is only upon minds of a ruder 
stamp, which feel rather than think, that the strong energetic belief of 
the apostles acts with sympathetic force, and by its own vehement assu- 
rance makes them believe too. Hence, — and it is important to note this 
moral effect of the doctrine, — the belief in a future life has acquired an 
overbalanced character from the reports of the resurrection of Christ : 
it has attained an influence greater than it would have had in reason, 
and therefore an unsound, exaggerated, and unwholesome influence. 
Being an unnatural belief, — that is, at all events, unnatural in this 
degree of positive assurance, — it has a perverting effect, leading in some 
to hypocrisy and a pretence of regard to a world to come, while all the 
real interest is in the present ; and in others, where it is genuine, to all 
sorts of superstitious notions, and practically to a too small estimate of 
the duties as well as the enjoyments of this life. 

The idea of a Day of Judgment, gross and material as it is, has led 
in an untold variety of ways to the neglect of justice here below in the 
dealings of Christians with their fellow men. And for the accompanying 
doctrine of the eternity of hell-torments, which if not strictly expressed 
in Scripture, has been derived from it, it is so manifestly horrible as to 
need no exposure. It is one of those monstrosities which betray the 
proper nature of superstition, and have no existence apart from it. It 
shows that the Jewish savageness of disposition was not all softened 
away by Christian benevolence ; that love for the brethren was not yet 

enlarged into a love for mankind. The equal admission of Gentiles 

with J ews to the benefits of the Christian salvation, chiefly attributable 
to Paul, was, indeed, a great advance upon the previous Jewish exclusive- 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



55 



— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

same Person, in whom we believe the Divine and Human Nature to have 
been united ; though we can no more comprehend that union, than we 
can that of the human soul and body ; and they are well fitted to fix 
our affections on that Person."* 

XXIX. ' 'The belief of a life to come, though nominally professed, 
cannot be considered as practically forming any part of the creed of those 
ancient nations with whom we are best acquainted. . . The Epicurean 
school openly contended against it ; Aristotle passes it by as not worth 
considering, and takes for granted the contrary supposition, as not need- 
ing proof. . . Of those philosophers who contended for a future state, 
it is to be observed, not only that, as Dr. Paley remarks, they did not 
properly speaking, effect a discovery ; e it was only one guess among 
many j he only discovers, who proves but also that their argument 
did not fully succeed in convincing even themselves. Those which at one 
time they bring forward as decisive proof, they seem at another time to 
regard as hardly possessing that degree of probability, which, now that 
the doctrine is established, most are ready to allow to them. Cicero 
especially we find distinctly acknowledging, at least in the person of one 
of his disputants, that though, while he is reading the Phsedo, he feels 
disposed to assent to the reasons urged in favour of a future state, his 
conviction vanishes as soon as he lays down the book, and revolves the 
matter in his own thoughts ; which was the feeling probably with which 
the author himself had written it. Many indeed of the deistical writers 
of modern times have come to much more decisive conclusions on this, 
and also on many other points than the ancients did, and indeed than 
are fairly warranted by any arguments which unassisted reason can sup- 
ply ; but this only affords a presumption of the powerful, though unac- 
knowledged and perhaps unperceived, influence which the Gospel reve- 
lation has exercised even on the minds of those who reject it : they have 
drunk at that stream of knowledge, which they cannot, or will not, trace 
to the real source from which it flows." Ancient philosophers and modern 
deists argue from the distinct nature of the soul: but "the question is 
left by unaided Reason in a doubtful state. To the Christian, indeed, 
all this doubt would be instantly removed, if he found that the immor- 
tality of the soul, as a disembodied Spirit, were revealed to him in the 
word of God. He cannot question the power of the great Creator to 
prolong, in any way He may see fit, the life He originally gave ; but 
this is very different from arriving at the conclusion by the evidence which 
unassisted reason can supply. In fact, however, no such doctrine is re- 
vealed to us ; the Christian's hope, as founded on the promises contained 
in the Gospel, is, the resurrection of the body ; a doctrine which seems 
never to have occurred (nor indeed was likely to occur, from any con- 



* "Whately's Essays. Essay n. sec. VI. IV. 



00 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation.— 

ness ; but it leaves much yet to be cleared away in the view of philo- 
sophic philanthropy, since it never supposed that they could be saved 
without the theological condition of faith in Christ. 



XXX. Christianity, then, does not intrinsically show itself 

Christianity was to be a Divine, i. e. a perfect institution. In its doc- 
fitted for its own trines, its miracles, and its morality, it bears the stamp 
age, not for all 0 f ^he a g e j n w jri c h jfc arose, the signs of human origin 
and human imperfection. It grew in a natural way out 
of what went before it, and was a noble expression of the best wisdom 
the world then possessed : — so well adapted to the existing need that it 
was accepted as Divine. But by this superstition, which binds truth 
and error in one, the mistakes that belonged to the past are perpetuated 
to our own time, when from their now manifest incongruity they are 
become incomparably more prejudicial. Thus, to recapitulate : 

The apostolic announcement that Jesus was the Messiah, 
in its doctrines ; the Word, the Lamb of God who should take away the 
sins of the world, was but an application to their master of existing notions 
of Hebrew patriotic anticipation and of ideal Grecian philosophy ; — notions 
which would have had their day and given place to new forms of thought, 
if they had not been so embodied. The doctrine that "without shedding 
of blood is no remission of sins," was already in the world Jewish and 
Heathen, having been handed down from the most savage times, when 
God was conceived as a savage too, jealous and relentless as his worship- 
pers themselves ; and the Pauline theology, which adapted the doctrine 
on a grand spiritual scale to the * 4 offering up once for all of the body 
of Jesus Christ," while it has captivated the dazzled imagination of Chris- 
tians through all these ages, and held faith fast in the bonds of bewilder- 
ment, has only shown it all the more conspicuously in its real monstrosity, 
as soon as it is considered in the unprejudiced light of reason and 
morality. 

Respecting the nature of God, Christianity reveals nothing, — could 
indeed reveal nothing, since we have not faculties to comprehend it. It 
accepts the Hebrew idea of God as it stood at the time, deepening only 
its amiable characteristics, as a protecting guardian and loving Father, 
but having especially favour for his elect children : an idea which to the 
present mode of thought, is anthropomorphic and not accordant with 
justice. If we are to make original Christianity responsible for the dogma 
which sprung out of it, (by logical necessity, as it appears,) of the mys- 
terious Trinity, the divided-undivided Three-in-One, at which "reason 
stands aghast," — this is certainly no revelation; the mystery remains a 
mystery for ever, un revealed and unrevealable ; — and we must bring 
against Christianity the heavy accusation of compelling us to receive — 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



57 



—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

templation of the change from night to day, and from summer to winter) 
to any of the heathen." "The notion that immortal happiness after 
death is the just and natural consequence of a well spent life, is equally 
unfounded in reason and in revelation. . . Immortal happiness not only 
can be no other than a free gift, but a gift which can be reasonably 
expected on no other ground than that of express promise. Such a pro- 
mise is held out in the Gospel ; in which the Christian finds eternal life 
alluded to, not as merely ' brought to light' by Jesus Christ, but procured 
through his means. . . The Christian Scriptures do not profess to repub- 
lish, as part of the religion of nature, the doctrine that eternal happi- 
ness is the just and legitimate reward of a virtuous life ; but, on the con- 
trary, while they speak of death as the t wages of sin,'' they represent eternal 
life as ' the gift of God through Jesus Christ' : a reward, indeed, dependent 
on obedience, but earned and merited by the sacrifice of a Redeemer."* 



XXX. "Christianity stands distinguished from all systems of reli- 
gion, or of philosophy, which unaided reason can devise, by the motives 
to which it appeals. . . For a rational and firm assurance of a future re- 
surrection to immortality, we must resort to the Gospel ; — for the hopes 
of eternal happiness, we must look to Him, who has not only announced 
but purchased it ; — for such a manifestation of the Godhead as may excite 
us to affectionate Piety ; and for such a model of human Virtue as may 
be securely imitated — we shall vainly seek, except in the Gospel ; and 
it is there also, and there alone, that we find morality inculcated, not 
only on the ground of those promises and threatenings which it sets 
before us, but also of the affections which it is so remarkably and pecu- 
liarly calculated to excite. If mere external acts of duty were all that 
is required, this kind of precept would still be far superior to a mere 
appeal to men's reason, and would produce a larger amount of good con- 
duct : much greater, then, will its superiority appear, when we consider 
how much nobler and more intrinsically valuable is that good conduct 
which springs from a pious, and grateful, and affectionate heart. Let no 
one, then, lose sight of, or undervalue, these admirable, these divine pe- 
culiarities of our religion, which furnish the only effectual means of 
counteracting the weakness of man's nature. Let no one, under pretence 
of laying a firm foundation of Natural Religion, render the superstructure 
of Christianity insignificant, by attributing to natural religion what Re- 
velation alone can furnish : and, above all, let us not,— carelessly blind 
to those splendid characteristics which distinguish it— confound this reli- 
gion with the various systems of philosophical speculation, or of popular 
superstition, which have successively occupied mankind ; but keep our 



* Whately's Essays, pp. 50. 52. 53. 54. 60. 100. 110. Revelation of a future state. 



08 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY, 



[christian revelation.— 

that is, to pretend to receive — a faith which revolts and crushes our 
intellectual powers, and makes us false to ourselves, and only mental 
slaves towards God. 

The doctrine of a future life was already established and firmly be- 
lieved when Christianity offered to it as a corroboration the fact of the 
actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, and by its legends of tangible pre- 
sentations after death, such as are natural to a superstitious populace 
in all ages, gave it a gross material form which has adhered to it till 
now. And the apostolic idea of the future life was that it was to come 
in their own time. It was really to occur to themselves to witness that 
"the heavens should pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
should melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are 
therein should be burned up," and that then "the Lord should descend 
on the clouds and catch up them, his elect, in the air." The fine 
rhapsody of the book of Revelations* shows the state of inflamed fana- 
ticism, burning, earnest, genuine, to which the early Christians had been 
stimulated ; and the impression of this fiery, morbid enthusiasm remains 
on the cooled and hardened lava of the extinct volcano which is the 
substratum of our accommodated faith. Their passionate longing for 
the New Jerusalem that was to descend for them "adorned as a bride," 
is represented as a fit state of mind to be copied by Christians of the 
present day, who need a severe effort of abstraction from engrossing 
worldly interests, to enable them in any way to realize the belief in 
an actual future existence : — thus, again, opening an abundant source of 
hypocrisy and all kinds of superstition. 

In the miracles by which it professes to be attested, 
in its miracles; Christianity is marked by the deficiency of the age in re- 
spect to natural science, including the science of human nature : and in 
making it an imperative demand of religion that we should accept the 
same explanations of remarkable phenomena as those which satisfied 
Jewish peasants 1800 years ago, (as, for instance, that epileptic fits were 
caused by the possession of devils,) it forces us to repudiate our actual 
knowledge ; or else to make out some evasive double meaning in plain 
words. 

In morality it is the same. The principles of the Es- 
and its morality. senes were excellent in proportion to the then state of 
mankind ; but are no longer the best that can be laid down for us : the 
rules of duty, like all others, must grow with our growth, or they will no 
longer fit our requirements. As our whole nature expands, — and who 
would be so sceptical as to deny that in 18 centuries it has expanded? 
—our obligations, and our insight into the character of those obli- 

* The genuine antiquity of this suggestive illustration of the spirit of the times, 
is strongly confirmed by modern criticism. Baur admits it as one of the six books 
of the New Testament which only he allows to be genuine, or even products at all 
of apostolic times, — the others being, the basis of Matthew, Galatians, Corinthians, 
and Romans. See Westminster Review, January, 1854. p. 244. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



S9 



■INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

eye steadfastly fixed, as it were, on the Star which stands over the holy 
Infant at Bethlehem, and which has no fellow in the firmament."* 

"From Adam until Christ, the religious knowledge of the world was 
like the gradual dawning of light which precedes the sunrise, and from 
which we infer the existence and anticipate the approach of the sun itself. 
Christ came ; but his coming was as when the sun has risen in mist and 
cloud, and can scarcely be discerned. And then came the Holy Spirit, 
like the breath of heaven which blows aside the cloud, and enables us to 
look upon the source of all the daylight with which we have been blessed. 
So, also, our present condition as a Church may have some latent con- 
nexion with futurity, which we shall then only be qualified to perceive, 
when God shall again manifest Himself, and we ' see Him even as He 
is.' "f " The Apostles themselves, perhaps, saw not the full operation 
and progressive results of their own plans ; and we, at this moment, may 
be cherishing among the rites and ordinances of Christianity some, the 
full effect of which it may be reserved to future times, — to a period be- 
yond this world, — to develop. It is impossible to say, how far we are 
living by faith and not by sight. "$ 

"Pretended revelations not only abound with matters of speculative 
curiosity, unconnected with practice, but are sometimes even principally 
made up of them, so as to appear to have for their chief object the com- 
munication of knowledge concerning heavenly things, and for its own sake. 
. . Our religion teaches us what is needful for us to know, but little or 
nothing besides ; the information it imparts is such as concerns the regu- 
lation of our character and practice, but leaves our curiosity unsatisfied. 
. . If our faith be sufficiently tried by the admission of such mysterious 
doctrines as are important for other practical ends also — then, the reve- 
lation of any further mysteries, which lead to no such practical end, is 
the less necessary, and consequently the less to be expected. . Some parts 
of revelation may have a practical importance relative to some particular 
times, persons, and circumstances, but not to all. . There are some things, 
I am well aware, revealed in the Gospel, which but too many, even of 
those who assent to them, are inclined to consider as mere speculative 
articles of faith ; as e. g. the revelation of God to us, not merely as our 
Creator and Governor, but also as our incarnate Redeemer, and as the 
Holy Ghost our Sanctifier. But we may safely affirm, that whoever does 
not perceive in these doctrines any practical tendency, has not yet gained 
a just and adequate notion of what the Christian religion is. . . As the 
doctrine of the Trinity may be considered as containing a summary and 
compendium of the Christian Faith, so, its application may be regarded 
as a summary of Christian practice : as we believe God to stand in three 
relations to us, we also must practically keep in view the three corres- 

* Whately's Essays, p. 225-7. Love towards Christ as a motive. 

+ Hinds's History of the Rise and Progress [of Christianity. Vol. r. p. 148, 

X Ibid. Vol. II. p. 120. Quoted in Whately's Essays, p. 248. 



(30 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[christian revelation. 

gations, expand also. To bind down to a fixed law in morals, as well 
as in science, and in religion also, is to forbid all progress, and check 
the tide of improvement with the arbitrary fiat, hitherto shalt thou 
come and no further. The aim of the Essenes at purity, proceeded 
from the oriental assumption of the evil nature of matter ; — the body 
must be subjected, annihilated, that the spirit may be freed and enjoy 
its own perfection, which is a state of pure contemplation and inanition. 
The good sense of Jesus and his apostles kept the doctrine from becom- 
ing extravagant in their own time ; but whenever the sanction of reli- 
gion is given to error, superstition necessarily follows, and the abuses 
of monkish asceticism were the legitimate consequences of the gospel pre- 
cepts. In our day the consequences are deplorable in another direction : 
nature has forced the abrogation of those faithful austerities, and modern 
Christians, (save a few genuine copiers of the saints, who are stigmatized 
as fanatics,) while professing to take the gospels as their rule of life, 
satisfy themselves that the commands to "love not the world" belonged 
only to the early disciples, and that they themselves may look for a 
heavenly reward on much easier conditions. A false pretence of really 
unattainable sanctity, is the miserable result of accepting as divine an 
unnatural rule of duty.* 



XXXI. In estimating the character of Christianity, and the 

It is responsible claim set up for it of Divine wisdom, it is not to be 
for Judaism. forgotten that standing as it does upon the basis of 
Judaism, it becomes tacitly responsible for the divinity of that first in- 
stitution as well as its own. Jesus indeed claimed authority to miti- 
gate some of the ceremonial requirements of the law of Moses, and Paul 
declared that its end and consummation was arrived ; but neither implied 
a doubt that it had been ordained by God. Thus all the contradictions 
of geology and astronomy, all the gross physical miracles, all the savage 
delineations of Deity in the Old Testament, are bound up in the creed 
which must be believed by the Christian. — Those who say that Judaism 
was merely a temporary institution, are taking the ground of Infidelity, 
and at once give up the claim of its being a Revelation : unless, indeed, 
they believe that God can trifle with his creatures. 



* See Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity , translated by Marian Evans. Chap- 
man's Quarterly Series, No. VI. 1854. p. 208, 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



61 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

ponding relations in which, as is plainly implied by that doctrine, we 
stand towards Him ; as 1st, the creatures and 1 children of God 2nd, 
as the ' redeemed and purchased people' of J esus Christ ; and 3d, as 4 the 
temple of the Holy Ghost' our Sanctifier." "Let no one seek for a 
system of Astronomy, or of Geology, or of any other branch of Physical 
Science, in the Scriptures ; which were designed to teach men, not Natural 
Philosophy, but Religion : nor let them be forced into the service of 
any particular theory on those subjects ; nor, again, complained of, for 
not furnishing sufficient information on such points. Nor let any jealous 
fears be cherished, lest the pursuits of science should interfere with reve- 
lation."* i 1 It must not be forgotten that the Bible is independent of 
all science ; nay, did not its science reflect the science of the several ages 
through which it passed during the long period of its birth, it would have 
lacked one of the chief tokens and proofs of its authenticity, as well as 
one of the highest claims on our acceptance and our respect."t 



XXXI. " Many persons are struck with the air of puerility in a great 
part of the precepts of the Mosaic Law, from its supposed unsuitableness 
to the dignity of a Divine Lawgiver. In a future and higher state of 
existence, we may probably perceive nearly the same, in all the instruc- 
tions, natural or supernatural, ever given to Man in his highest state of 
civilization : and the difference between the rudest and most advanced 
conditions of our Species (when once removed from the condition of mere 
savages) may then appear to us hardly worth notice. The distinction 
between the ancient Israelites and the most enlightened Christians, may 
perhaps hereafter appear to us analogous to that between children of four 
or five years old, and those of eight or nine. "J "To look for a complete 
revelation of Gospel truth in every book of the Old Testament, is as if 
a series of letters from a father to his son, from his childhood to his 
mature age, were blended together, and it were contended, as necessary 
to indicate the consistency of the writer, that all should contain the very 
same instructions. "§ 

"When the Jews came out of Egypt, they were plainly a barbarous 
and ferocious people — pagan in all their sympathies and habits — rude, 
savage, and sensual in their tastes. They were a fair specimen of human 
nature in its animal type — and as such it was necessary to deal with 
them. . . Somehow or other, it is certain, spiritualism, starting at the very 
lowest conceivable point among this people, made steady progress — cleared 
itself gradually of the grosser forms with which it was first associated-— 
and ultimately brought up the level of human kind to an average of re- 
ligious conviction and sentiment which rendered possible the presentation 

* Whately's Essays, pp. 233. 241. 248. 252. 254. 262. 
f Dr. Beard, in the Christian Reformer. September, 1854. 
% Whately's Essays, p. 290. § Ibid, p. 96. 



o2 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[CHRISTIAN REVELATIOtt.- 

XXXII. If we regard Christianity as a natural production, 

The true worth i. e. , as a development of Judaism, assisted by broader 
of Christianity is views from Gentile philosophy, and animated by a more 

not known till it • ., - . , , ™ , 

is recognized as generous spirit of wider philanthropy,— and suffer it to 
natural. take its proper place in history : at once we are free to 

appreciate its real merits, and can much the better re- 
cognize its good for not being obliged to blind our judgments in the fear 
lest they should discover its evil. We can admire the benign influence 
which, just when it was wanted, came to counteract the fierce animal 
passions that had hitherto held undisputed sway (with regard to the 
masses) over the superior spiritual instincts struggling to obtain their 
freedom, — all the more for not conceiving ourselves bound, because the 
Lord has said it, to "resist no evil", to offer our cheek to the smiter, 
and our garment to the spoiler. Acknowledging to ourselves without re- 
serve, that we shall exercise our own judgment upon the propriety of 
our observance of the old precepts, we can much better see and honour 
the good that is in them. So also our reverence for the leaders of the 
great Reform, as far as they can be distinguished by us, if less exag- 
gerated, would seem of a more genuine kind when we regard them simply 
as faithfully working out the problem of their Present, and ministering 
to its immediate need with all their powers, which if beyond their age, 
were not so much beyond as that their age could not profit by them, 
than if we suppose them to be laying down laws for all future genera- 
tions. When we try to make that which fitted their age, satisfy ours 
also, the effort it costs us to strain a forced meaning out of them, or to 
force a meaning of our own into them, causes a frame of mind very dif- 
ferent from the implicit confidence of the true disciple ; and far inferior 
too to the frank admiration of one who can estimate the value of truth 
from having sought it for himself. The Scripture records will be all 
the more interesting and valuable to us when we seek in them for genuine 
human information. Not a particle of the truth that is in them can ever 
be lost. The great amount of the intrinsic worth that is in them, in 
Christianity, has been shown by the hold it has had over the minds of 
men during so many ages. And still there are very many for whom it 
is yet adapted, who therefore cling to it with steadfast attachment,— 
for whom it is yet divine. But when bit by bit they unwillingly find 
that parts are manifestly full of human error, then the great evil comes 
into play, that superstition has placed the stamp of divinity on the whole 
alike, so that to spare a part, all sorts of deceitful devices of crooked 
ingenuity must be used. There is perhaps an inner truth, not appreci- 
able by all, in all doctrines that have ever captivated the human mind. 
Thus especially in the dogmas of the Incarnation and Atonement, there 
is something which corresponds with the natural instincts in so profound 
a manner, that many feel disposed for the sake of this vibrating chord 
of sentiment, to retain verbally all the associated circumstances in 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 

—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

of divine truth, by J esus Christ, in the most spiritual form which our 
nature can apprehend, realize, and enjoy."* 



XXXII. " Lastly, assuming the facts to contain a divine revelation, 
that interpretation of their spiritual meaning which is found to be con- 
gruous with our religious consciousness may complete our conviction that 
we are rightly instructed in the mind of God. This congruity is, to a 
great extent, the ultimate basis of very much, if not most, of the actual 
belief existing in the Christian world. Theories of divine inspiration may 
be true or not— -may be treated as the foundations upon which the au- 
thority of God's Word reposes, or as human inventions to secure integrity 
of doctrine — may be overrated on the one hand, and undervalued on the 
other — but after all, the steadiest, the surest, the most operative belief 
in Christianity, is that which is born of the conviction that it answers 
to our need. There are countless thousands of men who know nothing 
whatever, and are never likely to know anything, of the incessant con- 
troversies waged upon this delicate question, who, nevertheless, rely with 
unfaltering confidence upon the testimony of the witness within them- 
selves that the gospel, as expounded by the apostles, is an elevating, pu- 
rifying, gladdening, spiritualizing power. They feel that it has succeeded 
in quickening in their bosoms a new and more glorious life — that it has 
set before them a nobler end of living — that it has brought them under 
the power of a better dominant motive — that it has infused into them a 
vigour for self-government such as they have derived from no other source 
— that it has hushed their consciences to peace — that it has changed the 
entire character of their views of God — that it has intertwined their 
strongest affections with imperishable objects — that it has filled, even to 
overflowing, a sensible void in their being — that it has superinduced a 
willing resignation to all providential arrangements, however hard to bear — . 
that it has overcome in them the fear of death, and endowed them with 
*a hope full of immortality.' With this experience in view, you might 
as well tell them that God made not the sun nor the eye that sees it, 
the earth nor the senses to which it ministers enjoyment, as to question 
with them whether the truths they have found so adapted to their 
spiritual wants are essentially divine. They wait for no settlement of 
theological conflicts touching the mode in which Scripture was given, to 
enable them to recognize the authority of revelation. Its title to reign 
over them is found in its power to do so. All the religious instincts of 
their nature determine for them the sufficiency of the New Testament 
display of God in Christ to answer their demands. And, in truth, the 
basis of their faith is trustworthy — more trustworthy, perhaps, than any 
theological dogma, how correct soever, respecting the inspiration of Scrip- 



* Bases of Belief, pp. 401. 406. 



04 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[CHKISTIAN REVELATION. — 

the Christian creed which otherwise revolt them.* How much better 
would they work out the divine truth for themselves, if at once they held 
themselves unshackled by all extraneous superstition ! The real glory 
of Christianity should be felt to be that it can lead the mind on to 
something better than itself. Only when it is thus recognized, is it seen 
to be really an everlasting good to man. Regarded as imposed by Divine 
decree, fixed, unchangeable, unimprovable, it is a barrier to all human 
progress, a chain to bind down the living soul of the Present to the dead 
body of the Past. 

AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 
THAT IT IS DEFICIENT IN TESTIMONY FROM 

XXXIII. That "the kingdom of God cometh not with obser- 

It made no pe- vation" is a beautiful truth as applied to the growth of 
cuiiar impression moral and religious principles ; but that a miraculous 
theTime 3 W ° rldat interposition in the affairs of men by the personal 
descent of a Divine Being, should yet not make itself 
clearly obvious and distinguishable from all the rest of history, is irre- 
concilable with our experience of what is proper to human nature. Jesus 
is represented as saying, " if these should hold their peace, the very 
stones would cry out : " — a very natural thought to the early disciples. 
If it be said, God's ways are not like ours, this is in fact acknowledging 
that the idea of miracle is but a fiction of human invention, and that 
the quiet even course is the truly divine. The little that is said of 
Christianity dming the first century or two shows, that the sensation it 
produced and the progress it made were no greater than was to be ex- 
pected from a religion that had a human origin and human means of 
propagation. 

The tampering with ancient manuscripts of which the partisans of 
Christianity, animated by more piety than honesty, have been notoriously 
guilty,— especially in the dark days when the monks held the literature 
of the past almost in their sole keeping, — renders suspicious much of the 
little mention we have of Christ and his first followers in Jewish and 
Heathen writers. The undisputed passages, however, from Tacitus, Sue- 
tonius, and Pliny, may be held sufficient of themselves to substantiate 

* " I turn away from the Bible, not knowing, if it use our words in a sense so 
different, so utterly different, from any which we attach to them, what may not 
be the mystical meaning of any or every verse and fragment of it. It has bat em- 
ployed the words which men use to mock and deceive them. A revelation ! Oh, 
no ! no revelation ; only rendering the hard life-enigma tenfold harder. . I do 
not disbelieve that in some mysterious transcendental sense, as involved in the 
system of the entire universe, with so vast an arc that no faculty of man can 
apprehend its curve, — that in some such sense the Catholic doctrine of the atone- 
ment may be true. But a doctrine out of which, with our reason, our feeling, 
our logic, I at least can gather any practical instruction for mankind— any deeper 
appreciation of the attributes of God, any deeper love for Him, any stimulant 
towards our own obedience— such a doctrine I cannot find it. I bury what I am 
to think of it in the deepest corner of my own heart, where myself I fear to look." 
Nemesis of Faith, by J, A. Froude, 1849, p. 72. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



65 



—INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] 

titre. The latter may be made the substratum of not a few erroneous 
convictions. The former seldom underlies any serious weight of error. . 
Men are misled easily enough by sophistry, by assumption, by ecclesiasti- 
cal authority — but seldom by the testimony of their religious consciousness 
that it has found a suitable object. 4 He that doeth the will of my Father, 
shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or not.' Yes ! practical 
experience is a safer instructor in this school than theoretic certainty. As 
touching theological science, it may often be wrong — but as touching re- 
ligious truth, it is for the most part right. "* 

AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY: 
JEWISH AND HEATHEN HISTORIANS. 

XXXIII. That a new religion, unsupported by any temporal power, 
should steadfastly make its own way, in spite of the hostile prejudices 
of Jews and the scoffs of Gentiles, is sufficient proof of its Divinity. 

" Josephus, who wrote his Antiquities about 60 years after the com- 
mencement of Christianity, in a passage generally admitted as genuine, 
mentions John the Baptist, as a preacher of virtue, who baptized his 
proselytes, was well received by the people, and imprisoned and put 
to death by Herod. t In another passage, allowed by many, though not 
without considerable question being moved about it, we hear of ' James, 
the brother of him who was called Jesus,' and of his being put to death. X 
In a third passage, extant in every copy that remains of Josephus's 
history, but the authenticity of which has nevertheless been long dis- 
puted, we have an explicit testimony to the substance of our history 
in these words : 'At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be 
called a man, for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher 
of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him 
many Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ ; and when Pilate, at the 
instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, 
they, who before had conceived an affection for him, did not cease to 
adhere to him ; for on the third day he appeared to them alive again, 
the divine prophets having foretold these and many wonderful things 
concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, 
subsists to this time.'§ Whatever become of the controversy concern- 
ing the genuineness of this passage . . . still what we asserted is true, that 
he gives no other or different history of the subject from ours. And I 
think also that it may with great reason be contended, either that the 
passage is genuine, or that the silence of Josephus was designed. For, 
when Tacitus, who wrote not 20, perhaps not 10 years after Josephus, 
tells us, that a vast multitude of Christians were condemned at Rome ; 

* Bases of Belief, pp. 366-8. 

t Antiq. xviii. v. 1. 2. f Ibid, xx. ix. 1. § Ibid, xvm. nr. 3. 

F 



66 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[JEWISH AND HEA- 

the simple facts that Jesus called Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, 
and that his adherents were so zealous in their attachment to the religion 
he had established, as to undergo the most cruel persecution rather than 
relinquish it : but the same testimony shows also the slight estimation 
in which the new religion was held. Converts to it were gained from the 
lowest of the populace. Philosophers passed it by, as unworthy any 
deep attention ; and though this is partly to their own discredit, and 
that of the corrupt age to which they belonged, it tells also in a measure 
against the divine power of the "word" said to be "inspired." 

The absence of testimony from J osephus and Philo has been most un- 
satisfactorily explained. The isolated passage* in the works of the former 
relating to Christ, can scarcely be doubted to be the insertion of some 
zealous Christian. The omission of any mention of the Christians (ex- 
cept this very equivocal one) by an author who has given so full an account 
of cotemporary events, is most probably explained by supposing that, in 
fact, the Christians were included in his mind under the sect of Essenes ;+ 
— showing that they were indeed regarded with respect by the philosophic 
J ew, but that their miraculous pretensions were classed by him as of no 
more value than those of many other sects of the day. 



AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 

TEAT THE FACTS IN EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY 

XXXIV. But the advocates of Revelation have a right to 

Historical cir- demand : if we are not to accept the account of the 
cumstances indi- origin of Christianity as it is given in its own records, 

cate a political, w hat then are we to believe of it ? whence came the im- 
as well as a reli- 
gious movement pulse that has carried down the religious scheme of a 
on the part of few Galilean peasants through eighteen centuries and dif- 
Jesus * fused it over all the civilized world 1 It ought to be 

shown, and may be shown, though necessarily it must be in a great mea- 
sure conjecturally, how Christianity may probably have arisen, without 
any miraculous aid. 

All the evangelists agree that the accusation on which Jesus was put 
to death was that he claimed to be King of the Jews : keeping this fact 
in view, without regard to the spiritual interpretation put upon the claim 
thirty years afterwards, the history of the time as given by Josephus 
affords a simple explanation of his career. X 

It is well known that before the time of Christ the Jews were in con- 
stant expectation of the appearance of a mighty prince, promised by their 
prophets, who should establish his dominion over the whole earth, and 
introduce the Kingdom of Heaven. As they suffered more and more under 

* Antiquities, XVIII. III. 3. + See Origin of Christianity, p. 63, note. 
X The following is abridged from the Historical Sketch from the Babylonish cap- 
tivity to the end of the first century, in the two first chapters of Hennell's work. 



1 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



67 



THEN TESTIMONY.] 

that they derived their denomination from Christ, who, in the reign of 
Tiberius, was put to death, as a criminal, by the procurator Pontius 
Pilate ; that the superstition had spread not only over Judea, the source 
of the evil, but had reached Rome also : — when Suetonius, an historian 
cotemporary with Tacitus, relates, that, in the time of Claudius, the Jews 
were making disturbances at Rome, Chrestus being their leader ; and that, 
during the reign of Nero, the Christians were punished ; under both which 
emperors Josephus lived: — when Pliny, who wrote his celebrated epistle 
not more than 30 years after the publication of Josephus's history, found 
the Christians in such numbers in the province of Bithynia as to draw 
from him a complaint, that the contagion had seized cities, towns, and 
villages, so as 'to produce a general desertion of the public rites ; and 
when there is no reason for supposing that the Christians were more nu- 
merous in Bithynia than in many other parts of the Roman empire : it 
cannot, I should suppose, after this, be believed, that the religion, and 
the transaction upon which it was founded, were too obscure to engage 
the attention of Josephus, or to obtain a place in his history. Perhaps 
he did not know how to represent the business, and disposed of his dif- 
ficulties by passing it over in silence."* 

AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY : 

CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN A NATURAL WAY. 

XXXIV. "The hatred which burned in the breast of the Jew 
towards his Roman oppressor, perhaps never glowed with equal intense- 
ness in any other conquered state. He had, however, his secret consola- 
tion. The long promised king and deliverer was near, and was coming 
to wear the crown of universal empire. To this conqueror the Jews 
indeed ascribed the office of promoting religion ; but the religion of Moses, 
corrupted into an outward service, was to them the perfection of human 
nature. It lay at the foundation of their hopes of dominion. I believe 
no strength of prejudice ever equalled the intense attachment of the Jew 
to his peculiar national religion. . . Among this singular people, burning 
with impatient expectation, appeared J esus of Nazareth. His first words 
were, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' These words we 
hear with little emotion ; but to the Jews, who had been watching for 
this kingdom for ages, and who were looking for its immediate manifes- 
tation, they must have been awakening as an earthquake. Accordingly 
we find Jesus thronged by multitudes which no building could contain. 
He repairs to a mountain, as affording him advantages for addressing 
the crowd. I see them surrounding him with eager looks, and ready to 
drink in every word from his lips. And what do I hear ? Not one word 
of Judea, of Rome, of freedom, of conquest, of the glories of God's 
chosen people, and of the thronging of all nations to the temple on 



* Paley's Evidences. Part I. ch. vii- 



68 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[early christian history may 

the encroaching power of the Romans, the idea of deliverance from then- 
oppression became more urgently associated with this national hope. Re- 
peated insurrections were excited by religions or political enthusiasts, who 
easily stimulated the populace to believe in their claim to fulfil the pro- 
phetic promise ; the most remarkable of which was that of Judas the 
Galilean, or Gaulonite, who persuaded the Galileans to resist an extraor- 
dinary taxation imposed by Cyrenius, the Roman Governor of Syria. This 
man appears to have been of great talent, and to have left a deep impres- 
sion on the minds of his countrymen ; for he is spoken of as being not 
only the leading revolter against the Romans, but as the head of a fourth 
philosophic sect. After describing the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Es- 
senes,* Josephus goes on to speak of a " system of philosophy which we 
were before miacquainted withal," originated by Judas, whose followers 
' 1 agree in all other things with the Pharasaic notions ; but they have an 
inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only 
Ruler and Lord". The revolt of Judas occurred about a. d. 8, and after 
its failure, no important armed resistance was attempted against the 
Romans for 25 years ; but he had left a strong impression, especially 
amongst the hardy Galileans. These feelings found a partial vent in the 
anticipation of the miraculous deliverance promised by the prophets. It 
was time that " Elias should come", as announced by Malachi (iv. 5, 6). 
An enthusiast of the Essene sect, named John, clad in camel's hair and 
leathern girdle like Elijah (n. Kings I. 8), appeared in the desert near 
Jordan, calling on the people to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven was 
at hand. The laudatory tones with which Josephus speaks of him as a 
preacher of virtue furnish a strong presumption that his discourses con- 
tained at least no apparent incentive to insurrection (for Josephus was 
attached to the Roman interest). Much excitement, however, was raised. 
Crowds came to hear him, and to give the outward sign of inward 
purification, submission to baptism ("partaking of the waters of purifica- 
tion" being an initiatory rite with the Essenesf). Amongst these crowds 
was a Galilean named Jesus, the son of Joseph, a carpenter of Na- 
zareth. 

But this was no mere disciple of John. The preacher in the wilder- 
ness soon found that his influence must decrease, while a more powerful 
voice than his own was raising the multitudes in Galilee with the same 
summons to "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"; and 
before his course was violently extinguished he sent a message to Jesus, 
asking if he were indeed the One that should come, — to which an evasive 
reply was returned. Jesus was a teacher of the Essene morality ; not 
however without admirable additions of his own ; but he adhered not to 
its ceremonial restrictions. He went about amongst the people, bidding 
them, "follow him" ; and he proceeded to lay the foundation of a sepa- 
rate organized society by selecting twelve of his countrymen to be his 



* Aniiq. xviii. I. also War, n. vn. f War, n. 8, 6. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



G9 



BE ACCOUNTED FOE NATURALLY.] 

Mount Zion. Almost every word was a death-blow to the hopes and 
feelings, which glowed through the whole people, and were consecrated 
under the name of religion. He speaks of the long-expected Kingdom of 
Heaven ; but speaks of it as a felicity promised to, and only to be partaken 
by, the humble and pure in heart. The righteousness of the Pharisees, 
that which was deemed the perfection of religion, and which the new 
deliverer was expected to spread far and wide, he pronounces worthless, 
and declares the kingdom of Heaven, or of the Messiah, to be shut 
against all who do not cultivate a new, spiritual, and disinterested virtue. 
Instead of war and victory, he commands his impatient hearers to love, 
to forgive, to bless their enemies ; and holds forth this spirit of benignity, 
mercy, peace, as the special badge of the people of the true Messiah. 
Instead of national interests and glories, he commands them to seek first 
a spirit of impartial charity and love, unconfined by the bounds of tribe 
or nation, and proclaims this to be the happiness and honour of the reign 
for which they hoped. Instead of this world's riches, which they expected 
to flow from all lands into their own, he commands them to lay up trea- 
sures in heaven, and directs them to an incorruptible, immortal life, as 
the true end of their being. Nor is this all. He does not merely offer 
himself as a spiritual deliverer, as the founder of a new empire of inward 
piety and universal charity j he closes with language announcing a more 
mysterious office. i Many will say unto me in that day Lord, Lord, . . 
and then I will profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, 
ye that work iniquity. ' Here I meet the annunciation of a character as 
august as it must have been startling. I hear him foretelling a dominion 
to be exercised in the future world. He begins to announce, what entered 
largely into his future teaching, that his power was not bounded to this 
earth. These words I better understand, when I hear him subsequently 
declaring, that, after a painful death, he was to rise again and ascend to 
heaven, and there, in a state of pre-eminent power and glory, was to be 
the advocate and judge of the human race. . . I feel that the Jewish 
carpenter could no more have conceived and sustained this character under 
motives of imposture, than an infant's arm could repeat the deeds of Her- 
cules, or his unawakened intellect comprehend and rival the matchless 
works of genius. Am I told that the claims of J esus had their origin, 
not in imposture but in enthusiasm ; that the imagination, kindled by 
strong feeling, overpowered the judgment so as to give him the notion 
of being destined to some strange and unparalleled work ? I know that 
enthusiasm, or a kindled imagination, has great power ; and we are never 
to lose sight of it, in judging of the claims of religious teachers. But I 
say, first, that except in cases where it amounts to insanity, enthusiasm 
works, in a greater or less degree, according to a man's previous concep- 
tions and modes of thought. In Judea, where the minds of men were 
burning with feverish expectation of a Messiah, I can easily conceive of 
a Jew imagining that in himself this ardent conception, this ideal of glory, 



70 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 

[early christian history may 

more immediate supporters, promising them that when he should obtain 
his kingdom, they should rule under him over the twelve tribes of Israel. 
We have traces of the rumour that the people "wished to make him a 
king". He escaped, however, from their importunity, and charged them 
to "tell no man that he was the Christ", seeing that his time was not 
yet come, and probably expecting some divine manifestation in his favour. 
It is significant, though not perhaps intelligibly explanatory of the in- 
tentions of Jesus, that there are many passages scattered throughout the 
Gospels hinting of swords and warlike demonstrations ;* almost obscured 
by the spiritual views which had been attained when the evangelists 
wrote, but most likely to be genuine, as they could scarcely have then 
been invented. At length, as if straightened to accomplish the work 
given him to do, he boldly threw off the restraints of timidity, or of 
unwillingness as a spiritually-minded enthusiast to enter upon the re- 
pugnant task of worldly conflict ; and trusting yet in miraculous support, 
made his public entry into Jerusalem, encouraging his followers to pro- 
claim him the Son of David. f Soon after a short-lived triumph, as 
Judas and many others had fallen victims to their patriotic fanaticism, so 
also Jesus was crucified and his title set up in mockery over him, " The 

King of the Jews". It is dificult to imagine the real state of the case 

otherwise than this, if we look plainly at the salient historical points rising 
out of the glorified mist thrown over the story of Jesus. If he had been 
merely a teacher of righteousness* there seems no meaning in his stirring 
up the Galileans to "follow him" with the watch- word of their expecta- 
tions ; and no ground for his political condemnation. Those unbelievers 
who cannot reconcile this mixture of political and spiritual ambition with 
their conception of his character, generally leave the whole as buried 
in impenetrable obscurity. 



XXXV. The followers of Jesus were confounded by this termi- 

subsequentiy nation of the career of one whom they had trusted to be 
adapted^to' the should redeem Israel": yet shortly after we 

condition of the ^ n ^- them in closer union than before, confidently pro- 
Gentiles, claiming, with every proof of sincerity, that Jesus was 
risen from the dead, and should yet return to sit on the throne of David. 
It is possible they might have reasoned themselves into this belief, by 
their attachment to their Master, and conviction of the justness of his 
claim to special Divine interposition : but it is more probable that some 
real incident had served to clench their loosened faith. Such an incident 

* See Appendix to Origin of Christianity, p. 499. 2d Edition. 

+ This view of the disappointment of Jesus, in the non-fulfilment of his projects 
and expectations, brings out an intelligible and deeply touching meaning in his des- 
cribed resignation. 

X Jesus has besides little resemblance to a leader of a "school," as Salvador 
calls him. See Jesus-Christ et sa doctrine, 1. n. ch. vn. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



71 



BE ACCOUNTED FOR NATURALLY.] 

was to be realized. I can conceive of his seating himself in fancy on the 
throne of David, and secretly pondering the means of his appointed tri- 
umphs. But that a Jew should fancy himself the Messiah, and at the 
same time should strip that character of all the attributes which had fired 
his youthful imagination and heart, — that he should start aside from all 
the feelings and hopes of his age, and should acquire a consciousness of 
being destined to a wholly new career, and one as unbounded as it was 
new, this is exceedingly improbable ; and one thing is certain, that an 
imagination so erratic, so ungoverned, and able to generate the conviction 
of being destined to a work so immeasurably disproportioned to the power 
of the individual, must have partaken of insanity. Now, is it conceivable, 
that an individual, mastered by so wild and fervid an imagination, should 
have sustained the dignity claimed by Christ, should have acted worthily 
the highest part ever assumed on earth ? Would not his enthusiasm have 
broken out amidst the peculiar excitements of the life of Jesus, and have 
left a touch of madness on his teaching and conduct? Is it to such a 
man that we should look for the inculcation of a new and perfect form 
of virtue, and for the exemplification of humanity in its fairest form ?"* 

XXX V. ei The most extraordinary parts of this new history of Chris- 
tianity are the inconsistent proceedings attributed to Joseph of Arimathea, 
— the boldness with which on Friday he claims the body of Jesus, and 
the sudden terror in which he puts it out of the way, before Sunday 
morning, — and the confidence with which it is assumed that a mere 
report of the resurrection, totally unsupported except by the successful 
abstraction of the body, should have the same effect on the minds and 
conduct of his Jewish followers, as the re-appearance of Jesus himself, "f 

"It is notorious that, vast as is the change from 'Go not to the 
Gentiles' [in the first charge to the Apostles, Matt. x. 5.] to 'Be wit- 
nesses for me unto the uttermost ends of the earth/ [after the resurrection, 
Acts i. 8] there was yet no improvement in the views of the Apostles. 
How little they had adopted the spiritual conceptions of Jesus, is shown 
in the question which they put to him after the Resiurection had revived 
the earthly dreams which, for a while, had utterly sunk into his grave. 
Jesus dies. Their ambitious prospects die with him. . . Suddenly he re- 
appears. The rumour is discredited, but evidence follows upon evidence, 
and disbelief becomes impossible. The dejected Disciples lift their heads 
from the dust. The resurrection of their Leader brings them back to the 
same state of expectation as before his death. It opens no new view 
upon their souls, but it scatters the despondencies of the cross and of the 
tomb, and re-animates their former trust in Jesus as their Messiah. 
Worldly visions, scared away by terrors, troop back into their souls. 
Jesus, raised up by God, becomes a more exalted instrument to work out 
their magnificent, but earthly schemes ; and, flushed with passionate an- 

* Channing's "Works, pp. 425, 427. + Prospective Revieiv, No. I. Februarys 
1845. Revievj of HennelVs Origin of Christianity, p. 29. 



72 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[early christian history may 
may have been the removal of the body of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea* 
from a spot where it might have led to dangerous excitement on the 
part of the disciples ; which, together with the message of the agent 
whom he left in charge of the tomb' to the women, was a probable foun- 
dation for the exaggerated stories that naturally grew up in the course 
of we cannot say how many years, and were eagerly accepted in the 
prevalent state of heated imagination ; — though we must remember that 
it is on record that at first the disciples treated the report of the women 
as idle tales. 

The band of the disciples then remained together, having all things in 
common, after the manner of the Essenes, waiting for the return of their 
leader when the time of restitution of all things should arrive ; unmolested 
by the worldly rulers, who entertained no jealous fear of the Messiah who 
was to come from heaven. Many were added unto them, and the com- 
munity prospered in peace, until an internal dissention broke their 
harmony. Although Jesus had not opposed the law of Moses, yet the 
spirit of his teaching was to make light of ceremonies in comparison with 
morality. Hence he came to be regarded by some eager adherents as 
rightfully superseding the national lawgiver. The zeal of the stricter 
Jews was kindled for the honour of Moses ; and Stephen, one of the most 
forward of the liberalizing converts, was stoned. This persecution widened 
the difference of the parties, and drove the innovating section more 
willingly into contact with the Gentiles. Some of these were attracted 
to this reformed Judaism ; and with their conversion began to appear a 
modification in the titles and offices ascribed to Christ. Instead of being 
the mere King of Israel, he was now invested with the character of the 
destined Judge of Mankind. As their numbers increased, the disciples 
became consolidated into a sect, and while still regarded by the undis- 
tinguishing heathens as Jews, and by friendly Jewish writers as Essenes, 
amongst a closer circle of acquaintance they began to be called Christians 
at Antioch, A.D. 43. 

Peter, at first the leader of the liberal party, shrank from the odium 
to be incurred with his own countrymen ; and his place was taken by a 
new convert much better fitted for it, — Saul of Tarsus, a young man of 
Jewish extraction, though belonging to a Gentile nation. With him 
Christianity took a new and grander form. The narrow band of J ewish 
disciples, waiting for the re-appearing of their Lord from heaven, would, 
in all human probability, soon have dissolved away, and left no trace in 
the world's history : but Paul, with his unconquerable energy, his vehe- 
ment impulses, his generous and liberal mind, his Rabbinical learning, 
and, above all, his independent genius, laid the broad foundations of a 

* See an examination of the motives that would naturally have induced Joseph 
to this step in Origin of Christianity, p. 228, et seq. And also the reasons for 
"believing the death of Jesus to have been real, and that he did not actually survive 
his crucifixion,— as is held by some unbelievers, — in Appendix, p. 491-3, 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



73 



BE ACCOUNTED FOR NATURALLY.] 

ticipations, tliey ask the risen Saviour to become the agent of their 
unspiritual projects : ' Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom 
to Israel V It is evident that the views of the Apostles had undergone 
no spiritual change. . . The Apostles were forbidden preaching to the 
Samaritans and Gentiles, because their exclusiveness and unchristian tem- 
per must have prevented their doing so to any good effect. They were 
not then qualified to preach a Gospel of peace in the spirit of it. . . They 
would not only have injured its gentle spirit, but have misrepresented its 
substance. They would have proclaimed it as they conceived it, — a sys- 
tem half religious and half political, — a temporal kingdom set up for the 
true believers, into which all nations were to be merged by bowing to the 
sceptre and adopting the livery of Judea. . . This gorgeous error dis- 
qualified them to preach the Gospel, whether to Gentiles, Samaritans, 
or Jews. . . Whilst yet Christ lived, and their false imaginations lived 
also, they had a commission to announce him, but in no case to represent 
him. The event of his death introduced a necessary change into the 
conceptions of his Apostles. They could not retain their former ideas of 
the earthly reign of Messiah in connection with the crucified Jesus. If 
they held by their former faith, they must abandon J esus. If they held 
by Jesus, they must reconstruct their faith. But God takes care that 
they shall hold by Jesus, — and this is his mode of spiritualizing their con- 
ceptions of Christ and Christianity. Jesus returns to Earth to show that 
God had been with him ; and again he leaves Earth for Heaven, to repel 
the imagination which might possibly arise, nay, which actually had 
arisen, that even yet he might raise his spiritual standard on Earth, and 
realize the gigantic illusion of the Jews. By this means the Apostles 
were placed in this position : — they must retain their faith in Jesus as the 
Messiah, for how could they hold out against such evidence as Jesus 
rising from the tomb and Jesus passing into the skies? yet, if they are 
to regard Jesus as their Messiah, they must modify all their former views, 
and conceive of the Christ anew. And accordingly this was the plan and 
process of their conversion, of their introduction to true Christianity, of 
their spiritual enlargement."* 

"As the thunder-cloud moves in a direction seemingly contrary to 
the wind, so the Christian faith sped onwards in the very teeth of influ- 
ences best calculated to obstruct it. The single fact that Judea was its 
birthplace would go far to neutralize whatever contagious power it might 
else have exerted over the polished Greek and the haughty Roman. The 
Gentile world repaid with liberal interest the contempt in which it was 
held by the Jewish people — and not even in our own day would any 
novelty of doctrine originating amongst their now scattered descendants 
encounter stronger or more inveterate antipathies, than were opposed to 
the reception of Christianity from so despised a quarter, in the age of 
Tiberius and Nero. This, however, was not the only, nor the greatest 
barrier to the progress of the new movement in the Roman Empire. The 



* Prospective Mevievj, p. 24-27. 



74 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 

[early christian history may 
religion that should embrace Gentile as well as Jew, bond and free, within 

its world-wide influence. As a Pharisee, he believed in the doctrine of 

the resurrection ; he made no difficulty as to accepting the reports of the 
bodily revivification of Jesus, though he attached no doctrinal importance 
to them. To him, who had never seen Jesus in the flesh, the Christ 
was only significant as an embodiment of the religious ideas in which he 
had been nourished, or, more still, which had sprung up in his own 
creative mind ; he was the fulfilment of the prophetic oracles, the incar- 
nation of the mystic emanation of Deity, of which Jewish Rabbis taught 
as well as philosophers of Greece. But it was not all at once that Paul 
formed his spiritual creed. He too, like the rest, was looking for the 
Lord J esus to appear in the clouds, and make an end of the world ; until 
long disappointment, and the practical effect of his personal labours in 
organizing churches, ripened his views into a form that so happily fell 
in with the spiritual want of the age, as to be hailed with enthusiasm, 
and to spread with a success that well seemed to authorize them as divine. 

The course of events need be traced no farther. Christianity, once 
started from the personal influence of the character of Jesus, was now 
settled as a doctrine, for which the world was prepared. 

XXXVI. "That it crystallized round a particular person may 

The course of have been an accident ; but in its essence, as soon as the 
other religions widening intercourse of the nations forced the Jewish 
had prepared its mind into contact with the Indian and the Persian and 
way * the Grecian, such a religion was absolutely inevitable. 

It was the development of Judaism in being the fulfilment of the 
sacrificial theory, and the last and purest conception of a personal God 
lying close above the world, watching, guiding, directing, interfering. 
Its object was no longer the narrow one of the temporal interests of a 
small people. The chrysalis had burst its shell, and the presiding care 
extended to all mankind, caring not now for bodies only but for souls. 
It was the development of Parsism in settling the vast question of the 
double principle, the position of the evil spirit, his history, and the 
method of his defeat ; while Zoroaster's doctrine of a future state was now 
for the first time explained and justified ; and his invisible world of angels 
and spirits, and the hierarchies of the seven heavens, were brought in 
subjection to the same one God of the Jews. 

It was the development of the speculative Greek philosophy of the 
school of Plato, of the doctrine of the Spirit, and the mysterious Trinity, 
the h xou Trav, the word or intellect becoming active in the primal Being ; 
while, lastly, the Hindoo doctrine of the incarnation is the uniting element 
in which the other three combine, and which interpenetrates them with 
an awful majesty which singly they had not known."* 

From all these sources Christianity assimilated to itself elements which 
contributed to its perfection, and placed it in harmony with the feelings 



* Nemesis of Faith, by J. A, Froude, M.A. 1849. p. 88. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



75 



BE ACCOUNTED FOR NATURALLY.] 

general condition of society, both polite and rude, cultivated and unculti- 
vated, was such as to render its extensive success to the last degree 
improbable. The intellect of the times was in close and unblushing 
association with the grossest immorality. . It was, therefore, for the most 
part, devoid of insight into any of the more elevated regions of thought, 
and was more apt to analyze than to feel. It had already torn to shreds, 
by its acute and laborious criticism, the mythology which it had received 
from past ages — and proud of its freedom, it was ill-disposed to take upon 
itself a new and much more stringent yoke. Philosophy, confident in its 
own resources, desired no revelation of the Divine will. It might be 
politic to patronize religion as a convenient restriction upon the turbulent 
passions of the vulgar, but what sage of those times ever dreamed of 
making it the rule of his private life ? The dogmatic tone of Christianity, 
its exclusive pretensions, and its apparently humble origin, would be far 
more likely to shock the pride and prejudices of the educated, than would 
its moral purity and sublime spirituality to elicit admiration or beget at- 
tachment. And among the common people, the difficulties to be overcome 
were stupendous. A sensuous superstition indulgent to, and even provo- 
cative of, the lowest appetites of human nature, overspread ' the masses' 
like a foul leprosy."* 

XXXVI. "Some have pretended that Christianity grew from the 
ruins of the ancient faith. But this is not true ; for the decline of the 
heathen systems was the product of causes singularly adverse to the origi- 
nation of such a system as Christianity. One cause was the monstrous 
depravity of the age. . . Another principal agent in loosening the founda- 
tions of the old system, was Philosophy, a noble effort indeed of the 
human intellect, but one which did nothing to prepare the way for 
Christianity. The most popular systems of philosophy at the birth of 
Christianity were the Sceptical and the Epicurean, the former of which 
turned religion into a jest, denied the possibility of arriving at truth, 
and cast the mind on an ocean of doubt in regard to every subject of 
inquiry ; whilst the latter placed happiness in ease, inculcated a calm in- 
difference both as to this world and the next, and would have set down 
the Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice, of suffering for truth and duty, as 
absolute insanity. Now I ask in what single point do these systems touch 
Christianity, or what impulse could they have given to its invention ? 
There was indeed another philosophical sect of a nobler character ; I mean 
the Stoical. This maintained that virtue was the supreme good, and it 
certainly nurtured some firm and lofty spirits amidst the despotism which 
then ground all classes in the dust. But the self-reliance, sternness, 
apathy, and pride of the Stoic, his defiance and scorn of mankind, his 
want of sympathy with human suffering, and his extravagant exaggera- 
tions of his own virtue, placed this sect in singular opposition to Chris- 
tianity ; so that our religion might as soon have sprung from Scepticism 
and Epicureanism, as from Stoicism. There was another system, if it 



* Bases of Belief, p. 12-14. 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[early christian history may 

of the age : — that is to say, the vital portions of former religions shook 
off their effete garb, and flourished with new vigour under the fresh form. 
Such religions and philosophies, on the other hand, as had no vital 
portion, but lay like dead rubbish on the mental soil, by their very decay 
fertilized that soil, or, by their exhaustion of its power of producing one 
kind of fruit, prepared the way for a crop of an opposite quality. By this 
process of re-action, common to all revolutions, we can see how the pro- 
gress of Christianity was naturally aided by being in some instances the 
reverse of former modes of thought, as in others it was by its similarity 
and adaptibility to modes that were still in vigour. Here it was eagerly 
accepted because it was the neiv thing required ; there, it was willingly 
acquiesced in because substantially the same as the old that still satisfied. 



AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 



XXXVII. 



It has wrought 
no great and sud- 
den changes on 
bodies of men. 

its reception. 



THAT ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SUBSEQUENT COURSE 
Christianity has never effected any great changes on 



a sudden : its influence is on all hands confessed to have 
been silent and gradual ; working, in fact, just like other 
processes of amelioration. It has never made any im- 
pression upon bodies of men that were not prepared for 
As we see in our own day that the " conversions" wrought 
by missionaries amongst savages are merely nominal and external, so we 
find in history, that barbarians who were baptized and called Christians, 
were only changed in the very slight degree in which new circumstances 
modified their characters. 



XXXVIII. Professor Newman says:* "I at length saw how 

it was itself untenable is the argument drawn from the inward his- 
subject to out- tory of Christianity in favour of its super-human origin, 
ward influences. j n f ac t : this religion cannot pretend to self-sustaining 
power. Hardly was it started on its course, when it began to be polluted 
by the heathenism and false philosophy around it. With the decline of 
national genius and civil culture it became more and more debased. So 
far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan 
teachers, it became barbarized itself, and sank into deep superstition and 
manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learnt ferocity. When 
civil society began to coalesce into order, Christianity also turned for the 
better, and presently learned to use the wisdom of Latin moralists. By 
gradual and human means, Europe, like ancient Greece, grew up towards 
better political institutions ; and Christianity improved with them, — the 
Christianity of the more educated. Beyond Europe, where there have 

* Phases of Faith : or Passages from the history of my Creed, by F. W. Newman. 
3d. Ed. p. 98. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



77 



BE ACCOUNTED FOB NATURALLY.] 

be worthy of the name, which prevailed in Asia, and was not unknown 
to the Jews, often called the Oriental philosophy. But this, though cer- 
tainly an improvement on the common heathenism, was visionary and 
mystical, and placed happiness in an intuition or immediate perception 
of God, which was to be gained by contemplation and ecstacies, by ema- 
ciation of the body, and desertion of the world. I need not tell you how 
infinitely removed was the practical, benevolent spirit of Christianity, 
from this spurious sanctity and profitless enthusiasm. I repeat it, then, 
that the various causes which were silently operating against the established 
heathen systems in the time of Christ, had no tendency to suggest and 
spread such a religion as he brought, but were as truly hostile to it as 
the worst forms of heathenism."* 

AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY: 

OF EVENTS HAS NOT BEEN OTHER THAN NATURAL. 

XXXVII. If the national changes attendant on Christianity have not 
been sudden, they have been sure and permanent. And this permanence 
has not been owing to the vis inertice in the character of the people, as 
in the case of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Mahomedanism, for — "Its 
greatest successes have been achieved over those races of men which are 
most distinguished by the activity of their intellect, and at those epochs 
in the world's history when mind has been most awake. . . At starting, 
its most rapid and triumphant course was westward. . At the present 
moment its governing influence is chiefly exerted upon the Anglo-Saxon 
family. . . And those nations which most reverently cherish it as a faith, 
and are least disposed to treat it as a speculation, are specially distin- 
guished by their disposition and aptitude for turning their conceptions 
into acts. It is not among theorists and dreamers that the gospel met with 
its most ready reception, or developed its highest spiritual vitality. . Take 
the first two centuries of our era, or that which includes the Reformation, 
or that which has elapsed since the labours of Whitfield and Wesley, 
and it will be difficult to select another interval of equal duration in which 
the power, the activity, the freedom, or the daring of human intellect 
have been so conspicuously displayed. Other religions may flourish best 
when mind is most stagnant. Not so this, at least if we are to credit 
the general tenor of its history. It matters little how we explain this — 
whether we conclude intellectual activity to have usually sprung out of, 
or conduced to, the progress of Christianity. In either case, attention 
is challenged to the fact that its perpetuity has been maintained under 
conditions wholly dissimilar from those which have characterized the 
Oriental systems alluded to. The vis inertioz and the vis vital cannot be 
fairly treated as if they were the same."f 



* Channing's Works, p. 410. + Bases of Belief, pp. 25, 28. 



7* 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

been no such institutions, there has been no Protestant Reformation : — 
that is, in the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic churches. . . Christianity 
rises and sinks with political and literary influences : in so far, it does 
not differ from other religions." 



XXXIX. "If it is true that the sword of Mohammed was the 

it was propa- influence which subjected Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Per- 
gated on a large sia to the religion of Islam, it is no less true that the 
scale by the Roman empire was first conquered to Christianity by 
the sword. Before Constantine, Christians were but a 
small fraction of the empire. In the preceding century they had gone on 
deteriorating in good sense and most probably therefore in moral worth, 
and had made no such rapid progress in numbers as to imply that by the 
mere process of conversion they would ever Christianize the empire. . . 
We may say, in some sense, that the Christian soldiers in Constantine's 
armies conquered the empire (that is, the imperial appointments) for 
Christianity. But Paganism subsisted, even in spite of imperial allure- 
ments, until at length the sword of Theodosius violently suppressed 
heathen worship. So also, it was the spear of Charlemagne which drove 
the Saxons to baptism, and decided the extirpation of Paganism from 
Teutonic Europe. There is nothing in all this to distinguish the outward 
history of Christianity from that of Mohammedism. Barbarous tribes, 
now and then, venerating the superiority of our knowledge, adopt our 
religion : so have Pagan nations in Africa voluntarily become Mussulmans. 
But neither we nor they can appeal to any case, where an old State- 
religion has yielded without warlike compulsion to the force of heavenly 
truth, — ' charm we never so wisely.' "* 



XL. "We are told that Christianity is the great influence 

It was not the which has raised womankind : — this does not appear to 
influence that be true. The old Roman matron was, relatively to her 
raised Woman. husband, morally as high as in modern Italy : nor is 
there any ground for supposing that modern women have advantage over 



* Phases of Faith, p. 100. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



79 



ON COURSE OF EVENTS.] 

XXXVIII. " The Reformation arose, not from the Bible, but from 
Free Learning ! This appears to us like saying that the harvest comes, 
not from the seed-corn, but from good farming ; or that the ship makes 
its voyage, not by the wind, but by navigation. "Would our author have 
had the Bible produce the Reformation without Free Learning, — that is, 
without being applied to the human mind at all ? If not, what is the 
meaning of this false antithesis, between the state of the human faculties 
and the object on which fchey are employed? and of the strange exaction 
that the Scriptures, once put on parchment, should be able, whether men 
could procure and read them or not, — to overrule all the causes of internal 
corruption and external ruin, beneath which the Roman civilization suc- 
cumbed ? A 6 self-sustaining' power like this, a power to remain inde- 
pendent of perturbation from foreign influences, and to evolve like phe- 
nomena from the most unlike conditions of the human mind, is intrin- 
sically inconceivable. Be a religion ever so divine, — from the moment 
that it is consigned to human media, and delivered to the keeping of 
mankind, it inevitably shares the fate of all the intellectual and spiritual 
possessions of our race, and rises and sinks with the tides of history."* 

XXXIX. "If the imperial armies which Conquered the empire for 
Christianity' were to any considerable extent — and it must have been ex 
hypothesi to a prevailing extent — composed of Christians, Christianity 
had made at least equal progress in the ranks of civil life. . . Supposing 
Constantine a political convert, it could only be because he saw that 
Christianity had done its work to such an extent as to render it more 
probable that it would assist him than that he could assist it. . Is it not 
plain that Christianity must in some fashion have conquered its millions 
before Constantine or any other man was likely to attempt to conquer 
the empire for Christianity, or to succeed in so doing if he had ? Is there 
an instance on record of a people suddenly, at a moment's notice, changing 
its religion, or rather — for this is the true representation — of many dif- 
ferent nations changing their many different religions, at the simple com- 
mand of their sovereign, and he too an upstart ? In two cases, and in 
only two, it may be done ; first by an unsparing use of the sword, the 
brief, simple alternative of Mohamet, Death or the Koran ; the other, 
when the new form of belief has converted the bulk or a large portion 
of the nation ; of which, in this case, the conversion of the army is a 
tolerably significant indication."f 

XL. "Unjust as it is to measure the ultimate tendency of an histo- 
rical influence by its incipient phenomena, there does appear to us a 
manifest trace, in the first age itself, of an ennobling influence from the 
recognized spiritual equality of the sexes. The women of Galilee and 
the sisters of Bethany, the helpers of Paul in Macedonia and Corinth, 

* Prospective Review. No. xxiii. August, 1850. Review of the Phases of Faith, 
pp. 400, 401. Also contained in a volume of Miscellanies, by James Martineau. 
f Eclipse of Faith. 1852. pp. 420-422, 



80 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

the ancient in Spain and Portugal, where Germanic have been counteracted 
by Moorish influences. The relative position of the sexes in Homeric 
Greece exhibits nothing materially different from the present day. In 
Armenia and Syria perhaps Christianity has done the service of extin- 
guishing polygamy ; this is creditable, though nowise miraculous. Judaism 
also unlearnt polygamy, and made an unbidden improvement upon 
Moses. In short, only in countries where Germanic sentiment has taken 
root, do we see marks of any elevation of the female sex superior to that 
of Pagan antiquity ; and as this elevation of the German woman in 
her deepest Paganism was already striking to Tacitus and his con- 
temporaries, it is highly unreasonable to claim it as an achievement of 
Christianity."* 



XLI. " Undue credit has been claimed for Christianity as 

It has not been * ne f° e an( l extirpator of slavery. Englishmen of the 
the means of abo- 19th century boldly denounce slavery as an immoral and 
lishing slavery. abominable system. There may be a little fanaticism in 
the former which this sometimes assumes ; but not one of the Christian 
apostles even opens his lips at all against slavery. Paul sent back the 
fugitive Onesimus to his master Philemon, with kind recommendations 
and apologies for the slave, but without a hint to the master that he ought 
to make him legally free. At this day, in consequence, the New Testa- 
ment is the argumentative stronghold of those in the United States of 
America who are trying to keep up the accursed system. Indeed, for 
several centuries in which Christianity acted in the Roman empire, it 
developed no recorded and public opposition to slavery as an institution. 
The humanity of good Pagan emperors softened the harshness of the laws 
of bondage, and manumission was common ; but that slavery, as a system, 
is essentially immoral, no Christian of those days appears to have sus- 
pected. Yet it existed in its worst forms under Pome, "t 



* Phases of Faith, p. 102. f Ibid, 1st Ed., p. 166. [In the 3d Ed. the subject 
is much enlarged in answer to opponents.] 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



81 



ON COURSE OF EVENTS.] 

the martyred deaconesses of Lyons and Carthage, were surely lifted by 
their faith into a consciousness of the claims of the soul, to which nothing 
in Pagan antiquity can present a moral parallel. . . We certainly believe 
that the chief function of the first eight centuries of the Church was to 
hand over the religion to its proper receptacle in the Teutonic mind, — 
there for the first time to exhibit on a large scale its native vitality and 
find its appointed nourishment. Still, if we remember right, the chivalric 
poetry arose, not in the Germanic race, but among the Romanesque tribes 
of Spain, France, and Italy ; and flourished most where the Albigensian 
spirit had freest way, and the power of the priesthood was most weakened. 
. . Wherever the characteristic sentiments of Christianity have had free 
action, wherever the faith has prevailed that life is a divine trust, com- 
mitted to souls dear to God, equal among themselves, and each the germ 
of an immortality, there and there alone has domestic affection been so 
touched with reverence and confidence, as to retain its freshness to the 
end, and afford a chastening discipline through life."* 

XLI. The object of the Apostles was to teach the religion of Christ, 
and not to stir up opposition to it by meddling with established institu- 
tions ; leaving it to the sure influence of that religion in time to effect 

every needful improvement. "Let me suppose you animated to go as 

missionary to the East to preach this (Mr. Newman's) spiritual system : 
would you, in addition to all tins, publicly denounce the social and political 
evils under which the nations groan ? If so, your spiritual projects would 
soon be perfectly understood, and summarily dealt with. — It is vain to say, 
that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed with power of working 
miracles, you would do so ; for you cannot tell under what limitations 
your commission would be given : it is pretty certain, that it would leave 
you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means, 
and not allow you to turn the world upside down, and mendaciously tell 
it that you came only to preach peace, while every syllable you uttered 
would be an incentive to sedition, "f " That Christianity opened its arms 
to the servile class at all, was enough : for in its embrace was the sure 
promise of emancipation. What more emphatic expression could the 
religion give of its hostility to slavery than this, that all men were to 
become Christians, and that no Christian should remain a slave ? Is it 
imputed as a disgrace, that it put conversion before manumission, and 
brought them to God, ere it trusted them with themselves ? . . Its Mis- 
sionary spirit forbade its ever providing itself with slaves from the Pagan 
class, while its own children had their liberty. It created the simultaneous 
obligation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free. That this 
tendency exhibited but faint traces in the earliest age of the Church is 
due, not merely to the small comparative numbers of the disciples, but 
no less to their expectation of an immediate close to this world's affairs. 
The only reason why Paul sanctioned contentment in his condition in the 

converted slave, was that, for so short a time, it was not worth while for 

. , 

* Prospective Review, pp. 395-7. t Eclipse of Faith, pp. 419-420. 

Q 



82 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



It has encou- 
raged coarse su- 
perstitions, and 
persecuting into- 
lerance. 



[INFLUENCE OP CHRISTIANITY 

XLII. "It is a lamentable fact, that not only do supersti- 

tions about Witches, Ghosts, Devils, and Diabolical Mira- 
cles derive a strong support from the Bible, (and in fact 
have been exploded by nothing but the advance of physical 
philosophy,) — but what is far worse, the Bible alone has 
nowhere sufficed to establish an enlightened religious 
toleration. This is, at first, seemingly unintelligible : for the apostles 
certainly would have been intensely shocked at the thought of punishing 
men, in body, purse, or station, for not being Christians, or not being 
orthodox. Nevertheless, not only does the Old Testament justify bloody 
persecution, but the New teaches that God will visit men with fiery ven- 
geance for holding an erroneous creed ; — that vengeance indeed is his, not 
ours ; but that, still, the punishment is deserved. It would appear, that 
wherever this doctrine is held, possession of power for two or three gene- 
rations inevitably converts men into persecutors ; and in so far, we must 
lay the horrible desolations which Europe has suffered from bigotry, at the 
doors, not indeed of the Christian apostles themselves, but of that 
Bibliolatry which has converted their earliest records into a perfect and 
eternal law."* 



The present age 
is notoriously ac- 
cused of Infi- 
delity. 



AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION 

THAT ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS AT THE PRESENT 

XLIII. Again and again in ecclesiastical writers we find the 

complaint against the want of faith shown in their age, 
ascribing it to the desperate wickedness of the people. 
In our own day, the outcry against infidelity has become 
louder and more general than ever, and, what is a new 
feature, is now accompanied by the forced acknowledgment that it is not 
to be so summarily j udged and disposed of. Though an unbelieving, this 
is confessed by all candid thinkers to be not an irreligious age. A spirit 
of earnest searching inquiry is astir, that will not be put down by au- 
thority, but will see and know for itself : very different from the sudden 
outbursts of licentious rebellion against over-restraint, which soon sub- 
sides into more confirmed superstition ; far deeper, and more formidable 
to those who hold that salvation is to be had only in clinging to the past. 

In all the more civilized portions of the continent of Europe, this 
species of Infidelity is making large advances ; and not merely in Catholic 
countries, where it may be said to be the natural reaction against Romish 
abuses, but now especially, exercising a far nearer influence over us, in 



* Phases of Faith, 3d Ed, p. 112. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



83 



ON COURSE OF EVENTS.] 

any man to change his state ; he that was free, was already the Lord's 
bondsman ; and he that was bound, the Lord's freeman. In proportion 
as this anticipation retreated, society began to feel the tendency of the 
new religion. "* 

XLII. " Never, perhaps, has a religious system been so put to the 
proof as this, by the misapprehensions, the follies, and the crimes of its 
own disciples. . Its entire aim and scope were gradually lost sight of by 
its adherents, and it became ultimately perverted to ends which its own 
principles repudiated. . Heathenism was grafted upon the stock of the 
gospel. It was made to subserve the vilest purposes of king-craft. It has 
been exhibited as giving its sanction to propositions which reason rejects, 
to institutions which experience has proved to be incurably pernicious, 
and to conduct which all the moral instincts of our nature abhor. . . 
Even to this day it is exposed to grave imputations by the ambitious, 
selfish, corrupt and tyrannical maxims and .practices of its professed 
exponents and subjects. It has seldom had an embodiment worthy of 
itself. It is remarkable that it has not sunk under the load of follies 
and atrocities with which its own disciples have burdened its name and 
reputation — more remarkable by far that it should have lived through 
the stifling atmosphere of ecclesiastical imposture, than that it should 
have survived the fiery baptism of persecution."t 

AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY : 

DAY, ARE INCOMMENSURATE WITH ITS CLAIM. 

XLIII. " The intellectual scepticism of the present day appears to us 
to be distinguished by two elements — it is partly speculative and partly cri- 
tical. JSTo doubt, it has allotted work to do of which Christianity will 
hereafter reap the benefit. Neither do we question that it has taken deep 
hold of many sincere, conscientious, and highly cultivated minds, which 
command, our respect for the freedom and fearlessness of their inquiries 
after truth, although none for the decision at which they have arrived. 
In truth, we demur to the appropriateness of the title which they too 
often arrogate to themselves, of rationalists — meaning thereby men who 
depend for their religious convictions upon the authority of reason. That 
is not reason, in our sober estimate, which sets aside an immense body 
of facts either by a speculative dogma, or by the utmost ingenuity of 
criticism. The highest interests of a man, rest, surely, upon more tan- 
gible and solid grounds than can be undermined by subtle intellectual 
theories, or frittered away by acute and learned criticism. "J 

4 ' There are, no doubt, some minds amongst us, whose power we admit, 
and whose perversion of power we lament, who have bewildered themselves 
by really deep meditation on inexplicable mysteries ; who demand certainty 



* Prospective Review, pp. 397-8. f Bases of Belief, pp. 22-25. % Ibid, p. 409 



84 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

Protestant Germany, where, out of patient, devout, study of the Scrip- 
tures, there has gone forth a stream of literature that seems threatening 
to sweep away every vestige of solid belief into a sea of mystic speculation. 
England is thought, by her pious children, to be the strong-hold of Chris- 
tianity in such a period of desertion ; yet England too shows symptoms 
of a course of opinion, not suggested from abroad, but spontaneously arising 
within herself, in strong sympathy with Catholic re-actionists, German 
theorists, either rationalistic or mystic, and too with American Trans- 
cendentalists : — all of them seeking to shake off and soar above the literal 
form of Christianity, as a cumbrous load no longer to be borne, from 
which they must needs be freed, in order to have play for the new ideas 
struggling within them for free expansion and legitimate expression. 



XLIV. Christianity is felt to be out of harmony with the age. 

While new fields of knowledge are opening in everv di- 

Christianity , ., ... ° , . r f J 

lags behind the rection, and widening with the increasing powers of 
age, and is an ob- the human mind, she alone preserves her set bounda- 
struction to im- r i eS) an £ by the selfish interests of her guardians is made 
to place herself a barrier in the way of the tide of im- 
provement which, by flowing nevertheless beyond her, shows how far she 
is left behind. It may safely be asserted, with a challenge to deny it, 
that there is not a single man of the present day, earnestly attached to 
any kind of science, who believes in her with the entire and hearty faith 
of the days of old. Ask the question of any, and, if it be not put off 
with shifts and evasions, the answer will be either an honest confession 
of misgiving, or else a pitiful use of phrases with double meaning. 

"The great theological movement of the Anglo-Saxons, the great re- 
ligious movement, is not carried on by the churches but in spite of them. 
To sum up the theological and religious condition of the Protestant coun- 
tries as a whole, it must be confessed that there is a great contradiction 
in the consciousness of the people ; that the Popular Theology is at vari- 
ance with the other sciences, and is fading from the respect of the people. 
A great intellectual movement goes on, a great moral, philanthropic, and 
religious movement, but the preachers in the churches do little directly 
either to diffuse new truths, or to kindle a deeper sentiment of piety or 

philanthropy. The Protestant Church counts this its chief functions to 

appease the wrath of God and to administer the Scriptures to men, not 

to promote piety and morality. Take the whole Christian world at this 

day— where is the vigour, the energy, the faith in God, the love for man 
which marked the lives of those persons who built churches with their 
lives ? Taken as a whole, the clergy of Christendom oppose the foremost 
science, justice, philanthropy, and piety of the age. The ecclesiastical 
institutions seem to bear the same relation to mankind now, as the eccle- 
siastical institutions of the Hebrews and Heathens 2000 years ago. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



85 



AT THE PRESENT DAY.] 

where certainty is not given to man, or demand for truths which are esta- 
blished by sufficient evidence, other evidence than those truths will admit. . . 
But we are at the same time convinced that in our day there are thousands 
of youth who are falling into the same errors and perils from sheer vanity 
and affectation ; who adinire most what they least understand, and adopt all 
the obscurities and paradoxes they stumble upon, as a cheap path to a re- 
putation for profundity. . . It may be feared that many young minds in our 
day are exposed to the danger of falling into one or other of the prevailing 
forms of unbelief, and especially into that of pantheistic mysticism, from 
rashly meditating in the cloudy regions of German philosophy, on difficulties 
which would seem beyond the limits of human reason, but which that 
philosophy too often promises to solve — with what success we may see from 
the rapid succession and impenetrable obscurity of its various systems. "* 

XLIY. " Other things being equal, you will find that those who have 
had the best general mental training, are the best prepared for a correct 
and profitable reception of religious instruction ; and that those who have 
been taught little or nothing besides what are called the general principles 
of Religion and Morality, not only do not embrace those principles so 
well as those of more cultivated understanding, but will be still more defi- 
cient in the right application of such principles, "f 

" We may be confident, that a judicious and honest search after truth, 
conducted without any unfair prejudice, or insidious design, can never 
ultimately lead to any conclusion that is really irreconcileable with a true 
revelation : but so totally distinct are the objects respectively proposed, 
that innumerable varieties of opinion as to scientific subjects may, and 
in fact do, exist, among men who are all sincerely agreed in acknowledging 
the authority of Scripture. "J 

" Christianity may feel assured that, as in so many past instances of 
premature triumph, on the part of her enemies, the ground they occupy 
will one day be her own ; that the very discoveries, apparently hostile, 
of science and philosophy, will be ultimately found elements of her 
strength. Thus has it been, to a great extent, with the discoveries in 
chronology and history ; and thus it will be, we are confident, (and to 
a certain extent has been already, §) with those in geology. That science 
has done much, not only to render the old theories of Atheism un- 
tenable, and to familiarize the minds of men to the idea of miracles, 
by that of successive creations, but to confirm the scriptural statement 
of the comparatively recent origin of our race. Only the men of science 
and the men of theology must alike guard against the besetting fallacy of 

* Reason and Faith. Rogers' Essays, pp. 315, 318, note. 

f Whately's Charge on the Right Use of National Afflictions, Sept. 1848. p. 30. 
% Whately's Essays, p. 262. 

§ "The recent interpretation of the commencement of Genesis, — by which the 
1st verse is simply supposed to affirm the original creation of all things, while the 2d 
immediately refers to the commencement of the human economy, — was suggested by 
geology, though suspected and indeed adopted by some of the early Fathers/' p. 339, 



b6 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

Every year the Science of the scholar separates him further and further 
from the Theology of the churches. The once united Church is rent into 
three. The infallibility of the Roman Church — who believes it ? the Pope, 
the superior Catholic clergy ? The Infallibility of the Bible, — its divine 
origin, its miraculous inspiration — do the Scholars of Christendom believe 
that in defiance of Mathematics, Physics, History, and Psychology? 
They leave it to the clergy. The Trinity is shaken ; men lose their faith 
in the efficacy of water-baptism, and other artificial sacraments, to save 
the souls of men ; miracles disappear from the belief of all but the clergy. 
Do they believe them ? The Catholic doubts the mediaeval miracles of 
his own Church ; it is in vain that the Virgin Mary reappears in Swit- 
zerland and France ; that Saint Januarius annually liquefies his blood ; 
that statues weep : the stomachs of reapers refuse such bread. It avails 
nothing to threaten scientific doubters with eternal hell. Superior talent 
forsakes the Church, — even in Catholic countries, there are few clergymen 
of genius, or even great talent. In Protestant Germany, theological 
genius teaches in the college, not in the pulpit : and with new science 
destroys the mediaeval opinions it was once set to defend. Will the spirit 
of the human race come back and re-animate the dry bones of dead 
Theology ? When the mummies of Egypt shall worship again their half- 
forgotten gods — Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis ; when mankind goes back to 
the other sciences of half-savage life, the Theology of that period may be 
welcomed again. Not till then."* 



XLV. The " alarming" spread of Infidelity, become now the 

Infidelity a- common topic of the pulpit and the press, of Episcopal 
bounds chiefly charges and Dissenting harangues, shows itself most ob- 
daTes St W ° rkiDS viousl y amongst the working classes. The following is 
an official notification of this fact in the "Report upon 
Religious Worship in England and Wales, founded upon the Census of 
1851." " The most important fact which this investigation brings before us 
is, unquestionably, the alarming number of the non-attendants. Even in 
the least unfavourable aspect of the figures just presented, and assuming 
(as no doubt is right) that the 5,288,294 absent every Sunday (out of 
12,549,326 able to attend, see Table 21) are not always the same individu- 
als, it must be apparent that a sadly formidable portion of the English 
people are habitual neglecters of the public ordinances of religion. Nor 
is it difficult to indicate to what particular class of the community this 
portion in the main belongs. . .t While the labouring myriads of our 

* Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology. By Th. Parker, 1853. Intro- 
duction, p. lv. 

+ [The intermediate sentences are transferred to the opposite page, as bearing upon 
the Christian side of the argument.] 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



■87 



AT THE PRESENT DAT.] 

their kind, — that of too hastily taking for granted that they already know 
the whole of their respective sciences — 'We know but in part, and we 
prophesy in part. ' "* 

"Since the introduction of Christianity, human nature has made great 
progress, and society experienced great changes ; and in this advanced 
condition of the world, instead of losing its application and importance, 
it is found to be more and more congenial and adapted to man's nature and 
wants. Men have outgrown the other institutions of that period when 
Christianity appeared, its philosophy, its modes of warfare, its policy, its 
public and private economy ; but Christianity has never shrunk as intel- 
lect has opened, but has always kept in advance of men's faculties, and- 
unfolded nobler views in proportion as they have ascended. The highest 
powers and affections, which our nature has developed, find more than ade- 
quate objects in this religion. Christianity is indeed peculiarly fitted to 
the more improved stages of society, to the more delicate sensibilities of 
refined minds, and especially to that dissatisfaction with the present state, 
which always grows with the growth of our moral powers and affections. 
As men advance in civilization, they become susceptible of mental suffer- 
ings, to which ruder ages are strangers ; and these Christianity is fitted to 
assuage. Imagination and intellect become more restless ; and Christianity 
brings them tranquillity, by the eternal and magnificent truths, the solemn 
and unbounded prospects, which it unfolds. This fitness of our religion 
to more advanced stages of society than that in which it was introduced, 
to wants of human nature not then developed, seems to me very striking. 
The religion bears the marks of having come from a being who perfectly 
understood the human mind, and had power to provide for its progress. 
This feature of Christianity is of the nature of prophecy. It was an anti- 
cipation of future ages ; and when we consider among whom our religion 
sprung, where, but in God, can we find an explanation of this pecu- 
liarity ?"f 

XLV. Mr. Horace Mann says : "The middle classes have augmented 
rather than diminished that devotional sentiment and strictness of atten- 
tion to religious services by which, for several centuries, they have so 
eminently been distinguished. With the upper classes, too, the subject of 
religion has obtained of late a marked degree of notice, and a regular 
church-attendance is now ranked amongst the recognized proprieties of life. 
It is to satisfy the wants of these two classes that the number of reli- 
gious structures has of late years so increased. "J "The Christian Church 
has not been backward to investigate the causes of her ill-success with 
these the more especial objects of her mission. . One chief cause of the 
dislike which the labouring population entertain for religious services is 
thought to be the maintenance of those distinctions by which they are 
separated as a class from the class above them. Working men, it is con- 
tended, cannot enter our religious structures without having pressed upon 
* Reason and Faith, p. 345. f Channing'a Works, p. 332. % Report, dec, p, 93, 



88 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

country have been multiplying with our multiplied material prosperity, it 
cannot, it is feared, be stated that a corresponding increase has occurred 
in the attendance of this class in our religious edifices. More especially in 
cities and large towns it is observable how absolutely insignificant a portion 
of the congregation is composed of artizans. They fill, perhaps, in youth, 
our National, British, and Sunday Schools, and there receive the elements 
of a religious education ; but, no sooner do they mingle in the active 
world of labour than, subjected to the constant action of opposing influ- 
ences, they soon become as utter strangers to religious ordinances as the 
people of a heathen country. . Probably, indeed, the prevalence of infidelity 
has been exaggerated, if the word be taken in its popular meaning, as 
implying some degree of intellectual effort and decision ; but, no doubt, 
a great extent of negative, inert indifference prevails, the practical effects 
of which are much the same. There is a sect, originated recently, adhe- 
rents to a system called * Secularism' ; the principal tenet being that, as 
the fact of a future life is (in their view) at all events susceptible of some 
degree of doubt, while the fact and the necessities of a present life are 
matters of direct sensation, it is therefore prudent to attend exclusively to 
the concerns of that existence which is certain and immediate — not wasting 
energies required for present duties by a preparation for remote, and merely 
possible, contingencies. This is the creed which probably with most exact- 
ness indicates the faith which, virtually though not professedly, is enter- 
tained by the masses of our working population. . They are unconscious 
Secularists "* 



XLVI. Thus far is apparent to the official eye : but, also, in 

The divisions those middle and upper classes whose church-going habits 
in the Churches furnish not unsatisfactory statistics, how much there is 
aecay DnS ° ^ °^ unse ttled opinion and renunciation of belief, has not 
to be sought far in abundant evidence. The Established 
Church, in mockery of its title, is convulsed with internal conflicts, and 

* Report, 1854, p. 93. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



SO 



AT THE PRESENT DAY.] 

their notice some memento of inferiority. The existence of pews and the 
position of the free seats are, it is said, alone sufficient to deter them from 
our churches ; and religion has thus come to be regarded as a purely 
middle-class propriety or luxury. . . A second cause of the alienation of 
the poor is supposed to be an insufficient sympathy exhibited by professed 
Christians for the alleviation of their social burdens — poverty, disease, 
and ignorance. . . A third cause is supposed to be a misconception on the 
part of the labouring classes of the motives by which Christian ministers 
are actuated in their efforts to extend the influence of the Gospel. . . 
Another and potent reason is attributable to their poverty, to the vice and 
filth which riot in crowded dwellings. . Better dwellings are suggested as 
a most essential aid and introduction to the labours of the Christian agent. 
. . Probably, however, the grand requirement of the case is, after all, a 
multiplication of the various agents by whose zeal religious truth is dis- 
seminated. Not chiefly an additional provision of religious edifices. The 
supply of these perhaps, will not much longer, if the present wonderful 
exertions of the Church be sustained, prove very insufficient for the wants 
of the community. But an agency is needed to bring into the churches 
those hostile to religious services. . The people who refuse to hear the 
gospel in the church must have it brought to them in their own haunts. . 
Their native and acquired disinclination for religious truth is chiefly of a 
negative, inert description, .too feeble to present effectual resistance to 
the inroads of aggressive Christianity invading their own doors. . . If we 
could imagine the effects upon a people's temporal condition of two differ- 
ent modes of treatment — education separate from religion, and religion 
separate from education — doubtless we should gain a most impressive lesson 
of the inappreciable value of religion even to a nation's physical advance- 
ment. . . Applying to the regulation of their daily conduct towards them- 
selves and society the same high sanctions which control them in their 
loftier relations, Christian men become, almost inevitably, temperate, 
industrious, and provident, as part of their religious duty ; and Christian 
citizens acquire respect for human laws from having learnt to reverence 
those which are divine. The history of men and states shows nothing 
more conspicuously than this — that in proportion as a pure and practical 
religion is acknowledged and pursued are individuals materially prosperous, 
and nations orderly and free."* 

XL VI. "The offensive displays of self-sufficiency and flippancy, of 
ignorance and presumption, found in the productions of the Apostles of 
the new infidelity of Oxford, are the natural and instructive, though most 
painful, result of attempting to give predominance to one principle of our 
nature, where two or more are designed reciprocally to guard and check 
each other. The excellence of man must consist in the harmonious action 

* Report, pp. 94-6, 103. 



90 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 

is notoriously held together only by its State organization and temporal 
benefits. There is at this moment a process of disruption going forward 
within it, which augurs strongly of an impending downfall, daily widen- 
ing as it is, and becoming more hopeless of conciliation. It took a definite 
rise a few years ago, when the spirit of religious earnestness that, it is 
believed, characterizes this age, first broke out at Oxford. The penetrat- 
ing intellect of Newman at work there, piercing through the sophistries 
of Protestantism, then effected an opening through which a host of con- 
verts have since followed him to triumphant Rome, draining the church 
of one class of malcontents ; while the more timid followers of Pusey, 
holding still within the pale of English orthodoxy, were, as it has proved, 
only the more fatally undermining the national establishment, by intro- 
ducing into its distracted bosom the pettiest and most vexatious controver- 
sies, to fritter away the remnant of its vitality. On the other hand, there 
was the noble Arnold, striving with his own straight-forward integrity of 
mind, to reduce this much-sophisticated Church to a simple carrying out 
of the precepts of Christ : precepts which he saw, if true, must rule in 
the schoolroom as well as in the sanctuary, in the every-day affairs of life, 
as well as in closet meditation on the life to come. And he left behind 
him a body of earnest men of his own training, who are still labouring 
over the difficult problem to reconcile Christianity with practical worldly 
life. But all efforts at renovation in the Church have led only to fresh 
disintegration, and betray the thorough unsoundness of its condition. 
Numbers of clergymen are daily confessing their abhorrence of the hypo- 
crisy that is required of them, and openly renouncing their profession, 
like the younger Newman, Froude, Foxton, and many others : while a 
large proportion, — seeming to be compelled to lay violent constraint upon 
their wavering convictions, by the desire to retain for their honest 
philanthropy a means of working moral good, — are forcing their dogmati- 
cal difficulties out of sight by involving them in metaphysical sophistica- 
tions. And of the remaining body of the clergy, can it be disputed that 
they are more and more losing their influence over the community, and 
coming to be regarded in the low light of tradesmen recommending their 
wares, when they offer religion in the set terms and tone of voice pre- 
scribed by antiquated usage ?* 

Amongst Dissenters, every small sect is divided in a similar manner 
into its orthodox conservatives and liberal innovators, rationalizing or 
mysticizing according to the bent of their minds : all feeling that old forms 
are no longer fitting to them, some few endeavouring to repair them by 
screwing them up to their original stringency, the greater portion trying 
to shake them off altogether. With regard to the Catholic church little 
need be said. The question at issue between Catholicism and Infidelity 

* See Philosophy of Necessity, vol. II. pp. 376-382. Measures for the amelioration 
of the condition of the people. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



91 



AT THE PRESENT DAT.] 

and proper balance of all the constituents of that nature. . . Hence the 
perils attendant upon the attempted separation of reason and faith, and 
the ruin which results from their actual alienation and hostility. There 
is no depth of dreary superstition into which men may not sink in the 
one case, and no extravagance of ignorant presumption to which they may 
not soar in the other. It is only by the mutual and alternate action of 
these different forces that man can safely navigate his little bark through 
the narrow straits and by the dangerous rocks which impede his course ; 
and if Faith spread not the sail to the breeze, or if Reason desert the 
helm, we are in equal peril." "The experience of the present 'deve- 
lopments' of Oxford teaching may serve to show, how fearfully both out- 
raged reason and outraged faith will avenge the wrongs done them by 
their alienation and disjunction. Those results, indeed, we predicted in 
1843 ; before a single leader of the Oxford school had gone over to Rome, 
and before any tendencies to the opposite extreme of Scepticism had ma- 
nifested themselves. We tben affirmed that, those who were contending 
for the corruptions of the 4th century must inevitably seek their ultimate 
resting-place in Rome ; and that, on the other hand, the extravagant 
pretensions put forth on behalf of an uninquiring faith, and the desperate 
assertion that the 6 evidence for Christianity' was no stronger than that 
for 'Church principles,' must, by reaction, lead onto an outbreak of infi- 
delity. That prophecy, too, has been to the letter accomplished. Our 
words were — 4 We have seen it recently asserted by some of the Oxford 
School, that there is as much reason for rejecting the most essential doc- 
trines of Christianity — nay, Christianity itself — as for rejecting their 
' Church principles. ' That, in short, we have as much reason for being 
infidels as for rejecting the doctrine of Apostolical Succession ! What 
other effect such reasoning can have than that of compelling men to be- 
lieve that there is nothing between infidelity and popery, and of urging 
them to make a selection between the two, we know not. . . Indeed, we 
fully expect that, as a reaction of the present extravagances, of the revival 
of obsolete superstition., we shall have ere long to fight over again the 
battle with a modified form of infidelity, as now with a modified form of 
popery. Thus, probably, for some time to come, will the human mind 
continue to oscillate between the extremes of error ; but with a diminished 
arc at each vibration ; until truth shall at last prevail, and compel it to 
repose in the centre.' "* 

Dr. Arnold said : "I hold the Church to be a most divine institution, 
and eminently characteristic of Christianity, and my abhorrence of the 
Priestcraft and Succession doctrines . . is grounded on my firm conviction 
that they are and ever have been in theory and in practice a most formidable 
device of the great Enemy to destroy the real living Church." It " seems 
to me the very truth of truths, that Christian unity and the perfection of 
Christ's Church are independent of theological Articles of opinion ; con- 

* Reason and Faith. Rogers's Essays, pp. 268, 267. Also Ed. Rev. April, 1843. 



92 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OP CHRISTIANITY 

is a plain one of sheer antagonism, — reason in religion, or no reason ; — 
and when such midground as that occupied in England is broken up, the 
adverse elements cannot do otherwise than fly off in contrary directions, 
so that, as consistency driven to extremes leads to Infidelity with some, 
it will inevitably plunge opposite minds into Catholicism. The Wise- 
mans of the latter, rejoicing over the accessions to their ranks, have tried, 
in the truly politic spirit of their Church, to show how their Universal 
religion can accommodate itself to the tendencies of every age, and accord- 
ingly now place their boast in being the real patrons of science : while, 
in the meantime, Pope Pius shows what he considers the requirements 
of the age, by convoking at this present time* all his bishops to Rome to 
assist in obtaining from the " Holy Spirit" a dogmatic decision upon the 
question of the "immaculate conception" ! 

Will any one say that such a state of internal discord, and bewildered 
antagonism as to the nature of that standard to whose authority they all 
profess to bow, in the churches founded upon it, looks like the result 
of a Divine Revelation ? Is not this rather the natural course of events, 
when the old doctrines, once believed by those who thought the deepest, 
come to be the creed only of those least capable of, or disposed to, 
thought ; that is to say, when, as regards the average of opinion, what 
was once religion has become superstition? 



XL VII. But then it will be said by many : let the dogmas go, 

—let even 'the Pauline doctrine of Grace, hard to be 
understood, cease to vex plain minds with profitless con- 
troversy ; — while only we retain the pure morality of 
the Gospel, we have proof enough that the mission of 

Jesus was divine. Is then the moral condition, any 

eligiousj such as bears testimony to a Divine special 
effort to rectify it? 

"There are those who would willingly maintain that Religion is an end 
and not a means — that Faith has a satisfactory termination in itself, and 
is not intended to lead to any ulterior object on earth. But they dare 
not say that Religion is not intended to make good men — to improve the 
world — to repress vice and strengthen virtue — to destroy selfishness and 



It shows itself 
deficient in its 
moral condition, 
and in its prac- 
tical influence. 

more than the 



* [November, 1854.] 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



83 



AT THE PKESENT DAY.] 

sisting in a certain moral state and moral and religious affections, which 
have existed in good Christians of all ages and all communions, along with 
an infinitely varying proportion of truth and error ; that thus Christ's 
Church has stood on a rock and never failed."* 

" If what we have seen, or read, is all that Christianity is to do for our 
race, — if the world is never to be converted to Christ, nor the church to 
be brought to a nearer conformity to the New Testament — then would 
infidelity triumph, and exultingly aflirm that the Son of God had not 
destroyed the works of the devil — that the gospel had been partially, and 
to a great extent, a failure, and therefore was a fable. We have no appre- 
hension that such a ground of triumph will ever be given to the enemies 
of our faith. A brighter era is destined to arrive, a golden age is to dawn 
upon us, when the predictions of prophets, and the descriptions of apostles, 
are all to be fulfilled, and the earth be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord. . . It is impossible even superficially to study the New Tes- 
tament, and also the pages of ecclesiastical history, and not be entirely 
convinced that Christianity has never yet been fully developed as it might 
be expected would be done upon earth, in the character and conduct of 
the church. There surely must be an age and a state in her history, when 
this shall be done, and when she shall not only be, but shall appear, to 
be cast in the very mould of the inspired volume — when the Sermon on 
the Mount, the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the 13th 
of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and the more eminently devout 
parts of all the other epistles, shall not only be the law, but also the 
practice of Christians, and the Bible and the church shall exactly agree — 
when every professor of religion shall be a living exhibition of faith, 
hope, love, in all their power and beauty. "f 



XL VII. "What, then, are the more obvious proofs of the continued 
action and power of the religious movement commenced by Jesus of 
Nazareth, furnished by the characteristic condition of modern times 1 
The first grand peculiarity is the simple but vast apparatus which it has 
erected and systematically keeps in motion for inculcating spiritual truths, 
for exciting and exercising spiritual affections, and for implanting and 
nourishing in the hearts of men a sense of spiritual duties. The one day 
in seven consecrated to physical rest — the institutions which collect men 
together on that day for worship and instruction — and the appointments 
which are so well adapted to stir human thought and emotion in reference 
to the purest, and highest, and worthiest objects of life and effort — may 
surely be regarded as emphatically distinctive of the faith attributable to 
the sacred Scriptures. . . To what a Jew said and did, in Palestine, above 



* Life of Dr. Arnold. 3d Ed. Yol. II. p. 60 ; Yol. I. p. 397. 

+ The Church in Earnest, by John Angell James. 1818. pp. 340, 343. 



94 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[INFLUENCE OP CHRISTIANITY 

expand benevolence. And they can not say that it has done this. On 
the contrary, the depravity of man is the constant theme of lamentation 
and reproof in every pulpit. Divines of all sects are continually calling 
upon their hearers to repent, and reproaching them for their obdurate deaf- 
ness to the call. Their hearers listen with an apathetic yawn ; a few may 
heave a sigh at the sad truth, while others smile at the ten-times repeated 
tale ; all go out into the world to continue their evil ways ; and the 
preacher himself joins in the courses which he had denounced. A religion 
thus admitted by its own teachers, after a trial of eighteen hundred years, 
to be so inefficient for accomplishing its purpose, speaks its own con- 
demnation."* 

It mnst be observed, that it is not fair to confound together Chris- 
tianity with the spirit of philanthropy, as if the two were identical. Love 
to our fellow-men indeed forms a large element of that moral gospel of 
Jesus which will carry his name down as a blessing to the latest generations ; 
but it is not that which makes Christianity a Revelation, and in that light 
alone is exception here taken against it. And, it must be repeated, in 
Christianity philanthropy is not a pure sentiment resting on its own ground, 
which is the strongest of all, the ground of simple natural feeling and 
reason ; it is not a thing right and excellent per se, but is based on the 
love of God, requiring good to be done to man primarily, if not solely, for 
the sake of God, — for His honour and glory. This is the true spirit of 
Christian benevolence, resolving itself in fact into piety ; and into piety of 
a kind which is founded on a narrow human idea of God, and which leads 
accordingly to narrowmindedness in the conception of what constitutes his 
glory. Hence persecutions against heresies and supposed blasphemies ; 
hence the zeal for Sabbath observance according to the letter of the "word 
of God hence the call for prayer and fasting when a dangerous epidemic 
approaches. Christian piety involves by necessity superstitions of this kind, 
which are so many obstructions in the way of enlightened philanthropy. 
Even in its benevolences, thus, the department in which Christianity has 
greatest and best effect, the 'age is not able to make progress unless its old- 
world prescribed notions be kept in the background. 

And how much does Christianity help the statesman, the magistrate, the 
man of science, of commerce, of literature, in those concerns which make up 
the ordinary existence of the world ? Still more, how much has it 
practically to do with every-day life in the home and in the heart 1 Is it 
not found to be so difficult, so impossible, to bring it into actual use, 
that it is truly said a miracle is required to enable it to be acted upon ? 
Before a man can become a Christian, the grace of God must make him 
a neiv creature. Christianity supposes miracle at its beginning and 
end, miracle throughout. 



* The Purpose of Existence, 1850, p. 238. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



95 



AT THE PRESENT DAY.] 

1800 years ago, we owe the fact that a very considerable portion of 
the human family are summoned weekly from the business and cares of 
the body, to converse with things directly pertaining to God. Make every 
abatement reasonable from the worth of the actual results, . . still 
there will remain this broad fact, as a living and thriving offspring of 
Christianity — that wherever it prevails, wherever it is not thoroughly 
overlaid by priestcraft, and buried beneath corruptions, a direct and sys- 
tematic appeal is made on one day in every week to the superior, may we 
not add, the diviner elements of .man's nature ?. . In myriads of instances 
the truths of Christianity are restoring conscience to its proper supremacy, 
reforming vicious habits, holding in check evil passions, and quickening, 
nourishing, and maturing benevolent impulses. . . Men are, even now, 
brought to a stand in headlong courses of passionate pursuit and en- 
joyment, by the simple but energetic influence of the gospel story upon 
their hearts. They are, down to this day, wrought upon by that narrative, 
and the popular interpretation of it, to achieve a self-conquest, even 
in the most unlikely circumstances, displaying moral heroism in its highest 
forms — to renounce the most seductive enticements — to break off the 
most cherished friendships — to rise above natural affections — to extin- 
guish seemingly implacable resentments — to face manfully the hardest 
trials — to submit unrepiningly to the bitterest mortifications — to endure 
with fortitude and cheerfulness the heaviest afflictions — and to trample 
in the dust the loftiest pride. . . The Christian faith has been, and 
is, as balm to the wounded conscience. . Through years of sickness 
it has been as a sympathizing and cheerful companion, suggesting 
thoughts all radiant of hope, . soothing irritation, charming petulance 
into submissiveness, and awakening and keeping alive, even to the last, 
that feeling which protracted disease and confinement tend so power- 
fully to extinguish — an unselfish interest in the welfare of others. 
Where death has been, and with rude hand has rent asunder tenderest 
ties, how often has it come like a ministering angel to the mourner, 
beguiling sorrow of its tears, binding up broken hearts, and whispering, 
in gentlest accents, to the bereaved, a conviction that all is well. In 
the hour of sudden peril it has imparted calm assurance, and has 
helped the timid and the constitutionally feeble to look destruction in 
the face undismayed. And in the chamber of death, when ' heart and 
flesh fail', and the departing spirit has bidden its last farewell to the 
things of time, has it not been to the dying as a visitant from the 
higher realms, come purposely to light the way-worn traveller through 
the dark passage of the grave, to his everlasting home ? No poetry 
in the description of these things can approach the poetry of the things 
themselves. And they are to be met with everywhere by those who 
care to look for them."* 



* Bases of Belief, pp. 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 39. 



96 



OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. 



[general 

XL VIII. The course of the argument, then, against Christianity, 
Summary. has been to show : That the idea ofmiraculous inter- 

position, in general, gives a view of Deity that is at variance with the 
principles which are to be gathered from Nature ; and that, judging 
by experience, such interposition would appear to be opposed to the 
natural development and progress of humanity, — which, indeed, are 
plainly set aside and disregarded in the supposed need of a special 
dispensation of Revelation, inasmuch as it is based upon the un- 
warranted theological assumption that man has fallen from his original 
condition, and is impotent to help himself without super-added divine 
assistance. That, if a Revelation were given, it is difficult to under- 
stand how it could be known and proved as such. That, in fact, the 
Christian Revelation is deficient in such attestation, both on external 
and internal evidence ; that, in it, the anthropomorphic idea of God, 
which is here carried out to its fullest extent, though in its most 
engaging form, has produced results that make obvious its in- 
herent contradiction with nature and reason ; that the dogmatic 
attribution of Deity to the human personality of J esus Christ, has been 
the occasion of disastrous confusion of thought ; that the doctrine of im- 
puted righteousness and sacrificial atonement for sin, is, especially, at direct 
issue with natural morality ; while the doctrine of Providence, which pe- 
culiarly characterizes the purer teaching of J esus, the gospel according to 
the Essenes, is true only as a fable for children, allegorizing principles that 
have to be worked out in a very different form by men amidst the realities 
of life. It has been aimed to show, that there is no sufficient evidence to 
prove that Christianity takes a supernatural place in history ; that its early 
facts, and subsequent diffusion, may be accounted for without miracle ; 
and that the good it has effected has not been of a kind to separate it from 
the ordinary course of things. And it has been urged that it will yet 
accomplish much greater good, when it is regarded simply as a natural 
means of improvement, and ceases to be encumbered with all those trappings 
and defences hung about it by superstition, which obstruct its adaptation 
to the growing wants of mankind. 

Either this must be the result : — or else, it seems inevitably to follow, 
we must give up reason entirely as having nothing to do in the matter of 
religion, as a faculty given us in mockery, and intended merely to be 
crushed under the Jugghernaut wheels of faith ; we must deliver our- 
selves blindly up to the guidance of so-called Heaven, — that is to say, in 
true language, of those bold men who arrogate to themselves the delegated 
right to rule over, and to trample upon, the prostrate souls of their 
fellow -men. 



ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



97 



wr.J 

Bishop Butler states the plan of histelebrated defence of Christianity 
as follows : — 

" Now the divine government of the world, implied in the notion of 
religion in general and of Christianity, contains in it ; that mankind is 
appointed to live in a future state ; that there every one shall be rewarded 
or punished ; rewarded or punished respectively for all that behaviour here, 
which we comprehend under the words, virtuous or vicious, morally good 
or evil : that our present life is a probation, a state of trial, and of disci- 
pline, for that future one ; notwithstanding the objections, which men may 
fancy they have, from notions of Necessity, against there being any such 
moral plan as this at all j and whatever objections may appear to lie against 
the wisdom and goodness of it, as it stands so imperfectly made known to 
us at present : that this world being in a state of apostacy and wickedness, 
and consequently of ruin, and the sense both of their condition and duty 
being greatly corrupted amongst men, this gave occasion for an additional 
dispensation of Providence ; of the utmost importance ; proved by miracles ; 
but containing in it many things appearing to us strange, and not to have 
been expected ; a dispensation of Providence, which is a scheme or system 
of things ; carried on by the mediation of a divine person, the Messiah, 
in order to the recovery of the world ; yet not revealed to all men, nor 
proved with the strongest possible evidence to all those to whom it is re- 
vealed ; but only to such a part of mankind, and with such particular 
evidence, as the wisdom of God thought fit. . The several parts principally 
objected against in this moral and Christian dispensation, including its 
scheme, its publication, and the proof which God has afforded us of its 
truth, are analogous to what is experienced in the constitution and course 
of Nature, or Providence ; the chief objections themselves which are alleged 
against the former, are no other than what may be alleged with like just- 
ness against the latter, where they are found in fact to be inconclusive ; 
and this argument from analogy is in general unanswerable, and undoubt- 
edly of weight on the side of religion, notwithstanding the objections that 
seem to lie against it, and the real ground which there may be for difference 
of opinion, as to the particular degree of weight which is to be laid 
upon it."* 

"It is obvious how much advantage the nature of the evidence (for the 
truth of our religion) gives to those persons who attack Christianity, espe- 
cially in conversation. For it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, 
that such and such things are liable to objection, but impossible to show, 
in like manner, the united force of the whole argument in one view."t 



* Introduction to the Analogy, last paragraph. 

f Analogy, Part II. ch. vil. last paragraph but one. 



H 



PART II. 



CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. 



OBJECTION'S, ON THE PART OF CHRISTIANITY. 

THAT INFIDELITY IS INDUCED BY A SPIRIT 

I. Butler says, towards the close of his Analogy, "It 

Difficulties is most readily acknowledged, that the foregoing treatise 
are admitted by i s by no means satisfactory ; very far indeed from it : 
accepted S ' as^a ^ut so wou ^ an y natural institution of life appear, if re- 
trial of Humility, duced into a system, together with its evidence."* 

" It is undeniable, that the perplexities which uniformly puzzle 
man in the physical world, and even in the little world of his own 
mind, when he passes a certain limit, are just as unmanageable as 
those found in the moral constitution and government of the universe, 
or in the disclosures of the volume of Revelation. In both we find 
abundance of inexplicable difficulties ; sometimes arising from our abso- 
lute ignorance, and perhaps quite as often from our partial knowledge. 
These difficulties are probably left on the pages of both volumes for some 
of the same reasons ; many of them, it may be, because even the com- 
mentary of the Creator himself could not render them plain to a finite 
understanding, though a necessary and salutary exercise of our humility 
may be involved in their reception ; others, if not purely (which seems not 
probable) yet partly for the sake of exercising and training that humility, 
as an essential part of the education of a child ; others, surmountable, 
indeed, in the progress of knowledge and by prolonged effort of the human 
intellect, may be designed to stimulate that intellect to strenuous action 
and healthy effort — as well as to supply, in their solution, as time rolls on, 
an ever-accumulating mass of proofs of the profundity of the wisdom 
which has so far anticipated all the wisdom of man ; and of the divine 
origin of both the great books which he is privileged to study as a pupil, and 
even to illustrate as a commentator, — but the text of which he cannot alter. 

"But, for submitting to us many profound and insoluble problems, the 
second of the above reasons — the training of the intellect and heart of man 
to submission to the Supreme Intelligence — would alone be sufficient. . . 
Implicit obedience to the dictates of an all-perfect wisdom, exercised 
amidst many difficulties and perplexities, as so many tests of sincerity, 
and yet sustained by evidences which justify the conclusions which involve 
them, would seem to be the great object of man's moral education here ; 
and to vindicate both the partial evidence addressed to his reason, and the 
abundant difficulties which it leaves to his faith. 'The evidence of 



* Analogy, Part II. Chap. vm. Ed. 1839. p. 281. 



PART II. 



CHKISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. 

ANSWERS, ON THE PART OF INFIDELITY. 
OF PKIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY. 

I. Reason and Faith have each their distinct province in the mind ; 
if either interfere with the other, mental confusion and disintegration are 
the consequence. In the infancy of Intellect, Faith ruled in every depart- 
ment of science as well as theology ; but as Reason has worked out know- 
ledge, the domain of Faith has gradually drawn into narrower limits, still, 
however, retaining, as she must ever retain, an ample sphere for the exer- 
cise of the religious sentiments of trust and submission. In proportion as 
Reason discovers the real bounds of knowledge, the more evident it makes 
the vast depths of mystery in the presence of which it belongs to Faith 
to sustain the soul with her gentle assurance. But Christianity has fixed 
the boundary according to the mental condition of an age gone by. A 
long precession of ideas has placed the celestial signs in a false position. 

The "faith" that is required of us by Butler and his followers, is not 
with regard to the real mysteries of the . constitution and government of 
the world, but in what, we think, are their own unwarrantable assump- 
tions. They invite reason to the examination of their arguments, but as 
soon as opposition presses them, they cry out that reason is impious, 
and faith is what is wanted. Our Faith is this, that Reason can never 
be impious. Sophistry is ahvays so, but true Reason never. 

We are told that " difficulties" were set before us, probably, as a trial 
of our faith. It may have seemed probable to Butler and his followers, 
but it does not to us. And may we not retort the charge of presump- 
tion upon those who thus judge of the motives of the Deity ? 

" The object of the Analogy is not to prove the truth of Revelation, but 
to confirm it, by showing that there is no greater difficulty in the way of 
believing the religion of Revelation than in believing the religion of 
Nature. Here, at the outset, the truth of Revelation — i.e. the very 
point to be proved, is assumed. . . He who believes the Scripture to have 
proceeded from God, is already convinced, and cannot therefore need 
convincing. The only man who needs an argument is he who does not 
already believe it, and does not believe because of the difficulties. The 
" difficulties" we find in Nature arise from our being unable to trace the 
train of causation through all its stages. We do not doubt the facts ; 
our difficulties are not external to Nature. But with regard to Revela- 
tion, the main difficulties are external to the Bible — i.e. arise from our 



100 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[spirit op pride and 

religion,' says Butler, 6 is fully sufficient for all the purposes of probation, 
how far soever it is from being satisfactory as to the purposes of curiosity, 
or any other : and, indeed, it answers the purposes of the former in 
several respects, which it would not do if it were as over-bearing as is 
required.'* Or as Pascal beautifully puts it :t — ' There is light enough for 
those whose sincere wish is to see — and darkness enough to confound those 
of an opposite disposition.' "J 



II. Perhaps to every Christian who has thought much 

The infidel upon the grounds of his belief, there has come a time, 
resents them as forming the turning-point of his religious life, when these 
Realon Ult t0 difficulties have pressed upon him with terrible force 5 

and experience has constantly shown, that from this 
conflict no one has come forth with his faith unscathed, who has relied 
solely upon his own strength, upon the mere deductions of his own 
intellect. If, at all risks, he must have his reason satisfied, he cannot be a 
Christian, since his nature is incapable of that "belief with the heart" 
which is alone "unto salvation." Reason is inherently self-reliant : as it 
is well represented in the Bible, that as soon as man obtained the know- 
ledge of good and evil, " God said, Behold, the man is become as one of 
ourselves." With the knowledge, the conscious exercise of his own power 
of intellect, comes the unwillingness to submit to authority : — it is a 
centrifugal force, that drives him ever onwards and outwards, unless the 
centripetal power of love, of faith, hold him to his Creator, and so the 
two combined cause him to fulfil his proper orbit of mingled duty and 
freedom. Soon as ever the strength of religious feeling is weakened, the 
pride of reason exalts itself, and rebels against restraint ; the ehild that no 
longer loves its parent, breaks loose from the ties that seem to impede its 
manhood; and if the child wander from its home, under the miserable 
conceit of its own powers, what is there to deliver it from the destruction 
into which its baby weakness may cause it to fall ? — Christians have been 

* Analogy, Part 11. ch. vm. p. 282. 

+ Pensees. Faugere's edition, tome II. p. 151. 

£ Reason and Faith. Rogers' Essays, pp. 260-2. See also "Whately on The 

Example of Children as proposed to Christians. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



101 



SELF-SUFFICIENCY.] 

being unable to believe that God did write such a book for such a purpose."* 
And the internal difficulties, moral as well as intellectual, are not only 
incomparably greater than those in nature, but stand on quite different 
ground. Here evil is expressly sanctioned by God ; whereas the best theo- 
logians are willing to attribute that in nature to some mysterious necessity, 
in Butler's own words, to "perhaps some impossibilities in the nature of 
things, which we are unacquainted with."f Evil in nature is something 
not to be acquiesced in, but to be withstood. If we follow our instincts of 
morality, we can never be brought to approve it ; as, in fact, we are re- 
quired to do by the Divine example offered in Revelation. When Butler 
thinks it not hard to believe that God commanded theft and murder, 
because there are inconsistencies with the moral law apparent in nature, he 
is obliged to explain himself by asserting that it is possible for a Scripture 
precept to make that which was previously unjust and immoral cease to be 
so : which, as it appears to us, notwithstanding his argument to the con- 
trary, is clearly setting aside natural morality. $ We have a command 
imprinted in our nature, to abhor theft and murder wherever we meet 
with them ; and this we do regard as divine ; in this we have reasonable, 
and therefore implicit faith. But we have none in the system of doc- 
trine that would require such a course of argument as Butler's to support 
it The difficulties in Revelation are to be accounted for by those in 
Nature ; the difficulties in Nature are to be acquiesced in because this life 
is a probation, a state of discipline for a future one ; and we are to believe 
that there is such a future life because it is — most likely : — this is all that 
Butler professes to show, and he does it upon grounds that are rejected 
as unsubstantial by his ablest successors in modern times. § On this 
tottering apex he rests the whole reversed pyramid of his argument for 
Divine Revelation : propping up its feeble basis, as he proceeds, with 
equally unstable material. One assumption that he makes, he states fairly 
as such, being requisite to his argument, that, namely, of the existence of 
an intelligent Author and Governor of the world ; but he slides in 
another, on which the whole conception of Revelation turns, as if it 
needed no explanation: — "the world being in a state of apostacy and 
wickedness, and consequently of ruin" !|| This is what theologians have 
been apt to take for granted. They are but beginning to feel that they must 
try and prove it. Meanwhile, our faith in human nature is unshaken. 

* Butler's Analogy versus Modem Unbelief, in the Leader for October 30, 
1852. See also articles in continuation, November 6, 20, and 27; and correspondence 
on the same, December 4. + Analogy, Part I. ch. II. 

X Ibid, Part II. ch. III. [He argues, that "men have no right to either property 
or life, but what arises solely from the grant of God : when it is made known that 
this grant is revoked, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either."] 

§ See Whately's Essay on The Revelation of a Future State. Also, Preliminary 
Dissertation in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

|| In the Chapter to which the Analysis of the contents of the Analogy (see ante, 
Part I. A. 48) refers us, all that is said upon this prime basis of the argument is 
this: — that Christianity contains a dispensation, " for the recovery and salvation of 
mankind, who are represented in Scripture to be in a state of ruin" Part II. ch. I. 



102 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[SPIBIT OF PRIDE AND 

warned in the Word that is still sacred to them, that Pride is the first 
cause of enmity against God, and the easily-besetting sin that is ever ready 
to ensnare man to his ruin : — human observation shows also how easily self- 
reliance degenerates into self-conceit and presumption, and that where 
these exist the judgment is warped and impervious to the perception of 
its own errors. 

It must then be placed as an accusation and an argument against Infi- 
delity, that it is engendered by, and engenders in its turn, this perilous 
degree of self-reliance, unbecoming in a frail human being, and inconsistent 
with a disposition for honouring God. The difficulties which the Christian 
accepts as a trial to his faith, humbly waiting till farther teaching be 
vouchsafed, are resented by the unbeliever, who must be a light to himself, 
who must see and know, and can take nothing upon trust. He thinks 
Revelation contradicts his reason, that in some respects it runs counter to 
his moral feelings, and therefore he concludes that Revelation is wrong. 
His confidence in his own decision, forgetting that man's judgment is always 
liable to err, his heart to deceive itself, seems preposterous and enormous. 
Let his arguments be ever so strong, his case seem ever so complete, it is 
always possible that on some one point he may have been mistaken ; one 
little link in the chain may have been overlooked that would make all the 
difference, one shade of circumstance that would set everything in a con- 
trary light. If no flaw were visible anywhere, philosophic modesty would 
lead a man to suspect himself in such a case, and would not let him dare to 
be certain.* Yet while it is so far otherwise, while there are such manifest 
symptoms of error in the attacks upon Christianity, that they are made from 
all possible quarters, so that opposing foes often shoot into one another's 
mouths, no demur as to the legitimacy of his cause arrests the headlong 
assailant ; — nay, a man may have to shift his own ground to all points of the 
compass, and yet be positive still. — He is in the right and Christianity 
is in the wrong. He has proved it. With the might of his own Intellect 
he has done battle with all the forces of Revelation, esteemed by deluded 
multitudes the armies of the Lord of Hosts. He has battered down the 
honoured bulwark of ages past, the tower of strength in which his fathers 
trusted : — and how can he avoid exulting in the power of his own right 
arm? 



* Dr. Arnold says : " The man you have been trying to convert . . . says that he 
cannot find out God, and that he does not believe in Him ; therefore he renounces His 
service, and chooses to make a god of himself. Now, the idea of God being no other 
than a combination of all the highest excellencies that we can conceive, it is so de- 
lightful to a good and sound mind, that it is misery to part with it ; and such a 
mind, if it cannot discern God clearly, concludes that the fault is in itself — that it 
cannot yet reach to God, not that God does not exist. You see there must be an 
assumption in either case, for the thing does not admit of demonstration, and the 
assumption that God is, or is not, depends on the degree of moral pain, which a man 
feels in relinquishing the idea of God. And here, I think, is the moral fault of 
unbelief : — that a man can bear to make so great a moral sacrifice, as is implied in 
renouncing God." Life of Arnold, 3d Ed. 1844. Vol, I. p. 314. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



103 



■SUFFICIENCY.] 

II. Christianity lias been so long associated with all the best feelings of 
mankind, that it seems impossible its separation should be effected without 
doing some violence to them. That is to say, the Christianity which re- 
presents God as the loving Father of his creatures ; for with regard to 
the harsher features of Calvinism, it is the moral feelings which are the 
first to resist the outrage put upon them ; — but the total abnegation of 
Revelation must be at least initiated by those in whom the mind is stronger 
than the heart. For inflicting pain that seems to it necessary and salutary, 
reason can vindicate itself only by proving itself in the right ; and the feel- 
ings, if, after they have subsided from the agitation of the shock, they 
cannot acquiesce in the decision of reason, have a right to make their 
protest attended to, and to prove it, if they can, in the wrong. 

Infidels are accused of making a god of their own Intellect, and 
worshipping it. If they do, they are abusing a faculty, as all idolatry 
is abuse. If they ignore and try to extinguish the religious instincts of 
our nature, their system is false, and will speedily be itself extinct. But 
there can be no idolatry in an unreserved homage to Truth, and in the 
sacrifice to it of all prejudices however bound about the heart. The faith, 
the religion, of " infidels" is, that Truth must always be in the right. 

But it is held to be the peculiar mark of self-estimation and self-love, 
to regard and follow our reason. The "Pride of Reason" has always been 
represented as the sign of rebellion against religion, against God. This is 
because, as it seems to us,, religion has been always hitherto framed with- 
out the aid of reason. And not only is it because it has raised up for 
itself fantastic unrealities which reason must necessarily destroy, that the 
latter is its natural antagonist ; but also because it has been mainly based 
upon that emotional and sensational part of our nature, over which reason 
feels its own prerogative to hold the mastery ; so that the office of reason 
in its opposition to religion ought not to be regarded as the rebellion of 
egoism against submission to superior authority, ( — to resist superior 
wisdom is the mark of idiocy, not of reason, — ) but as the claim of the 
higher Self against the vehement assertion of the lower Self. Religion 
has hitherto been the product chiefly of the latter. It sprang up in early 
barbarous ages, the growth partly of superstitious terrors, partly of craving 
desires for all kinds of personal enjoyments, partly of moral aspirations 
groping uncertainly for something more excellent than was yet percep- 
tible ; while reason was still too feeble to control, to guide, to enlighten 
the mind.* It has been grossly sensual, abjectly servile, exclusively sel- 
fish ; until reason, with benevolence, has come in to refine and elevate 
it, lifting it out of the sphere of mere individual hopes and fears, giving 
it generosity, poetry, an open eye for nature, an enlarged thought for the 
wonders of science. Reason and benevolence have always worked well 
together, twin influences which Nature befriends ; reason and religion 
have been in conflict, because the latter has been allied with the selfish 
instincts which the former, in proportion as it is pure and noble, strives 
to subdue. To seek its own salvation, is the object of the soul under 
the influence of religion ; to help forward the work of improvement for 
the good of all, is what reason prescribes. Even the love of God is as. 



See Parker's Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. 



104 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY 

[spirit of pride and 



III. Self-confidence and self-assertion are notoriously cha= 

Pride of Reason racteristic of unbelievers. They are men who rely upon 
is not far from Intellect, because their own either is, or they think it to 
Pride of one's own b 6j unusually clear and penetrating 5 while, as a general 
rule, they despise the religious emotions because their own 
are weak and easily suppressed. They are men who find it hard to under- 
stand, because they do not feel, the need of a Saviour, the sweet dependence 
of leaning upon an Almighty Father's love. They believe they can do 
without it ; and they glorify themselves upon their independence. Reason 
is by its nature sufficient to itself. And from trusting to Reason generally, 
the step is easy to trusting in their own reason. It is besides too strong a 
temptation to self-love to feel oneself wiser than one's fellows, to see through 
their mistakes, to show the originality of genius by striking out a new path, 
and superior strength of character by being able to tread it alone. It is too 
inviting to vanity to stand up and make oneself conspicuous, wondered at, 
even to be abused, for the sake of notoriety. These appear to be attractions 
to the large number of the open opponents of Christianity. As for those 
who disbelieve or doubt in secret, — anxiously, regretfully, mistrustingly, — 
they are objects only of compassion and sympathy to the sincere Christian. 
But it is difficult not to suppose that there is some desire of personal dis- 
tinction serving as a stimulus to the overbearing zeal of those, who can 
attack publicly a faith so venerable, so bound up with all that is precious to 
multitudes of their fellow-beings ; enriched with the accumulated wisdom 
of ages, endeared by the loving profession of an innumerable brotherhood of 
the best of men. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



105 



SELF-SUFFICIENCY.] 

of a personification of the soul's own ideal, composed of the human attri- 
butes in which it has depicted him ; of One who belongs to it, and repre- 
sents all that it delights in and longs for in Infinite perfection :* while 
reason, coldly but faithfully, sees that infinite gratification is not appro- 
priate to human beings. — There is no humility in believing that man is 
a "fallen" being, since it is only to exalt the intrinsic greatness of his 
nature ; and it is a childish magnifying of self-importance, to represent 
the salvation of man as the main object of Divine solicitude. There is 
much more modesty of conception in believing ourselves but one with 
the rest of nature, — a part of the Whole. 

III. " And here I complain, that men put Falsehood for Truth, in 
charging presumption and audacity on those who shrink from investing 
a human book or a human person with divine honours. To take on our- 
selves the responsibility of avowing that all the words bound up between 
certain lids are Absolute Truth, — to guarantee all the consequences that 
follow from such a dogma, — this is extremely audacious ; as every one at 
once feels it if applied to any new example. The audacity and presump- 
tion of bidding men to run all risks of pernicious error, in accepting the 
words of a book as all divine, certainly is not obviated by the fact that 
the book is old and foreign, and its origin thereby somewhat obscured."f 

" The pursuit of truth is easy to a man who has no human sympathies, 
whose vision is impaired by no fond partialities, whose heart is torn by no 
divided allegiance. To him the renunciation of error presents few difficul- 
ties ; for the moment it is recognised as error, its charm ceases. But the 
case is very different with the Searcher whose affections are strong, whose 
associations are quick, whose hold upon the Past is clinging and tenacious. 
He may love Truth with an earnest and paramount devotion ; but he loves 
much else also. He loves errors, which were once the cherished convic- 
tions of his soul. He loves dogmas which were once full of strength and 
beauty to his thoughts, though now perceived to be baseless or fallacious. 
He loves the church where he worshipped in his happy childhood j where 
his friends and his family worship still ; where his grey -haired parents 
await the resurrection of the Just ; but where he can worship and await 
no more. He loves the simple old creed, which was the creed of his earlier 
and brighter days ; which is the creed of his wife and children still ; but 
which inquiry has compelled him to abandon. The past and the familiar 
have chains and talismans which hold him back in his career, till every 
fresh step forward becomes an effort and an agony ; every fresh error dis- 
covered is a fresh bond snapped asunder ; every new glimpse of light is 
like a fresh flood of pain poured in upon the soul. To such a man the 
pursuit of Truth is a daily martyrdom — how hard and bitter let the martyr 
tell. Shame to those who make it doubly so ; honour to those who en- 
counter it saddened, weeping, trembling, but unflinching still. "$ 

* See Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, passim. 

f Preface to the third edition of The Soul, by F. W. Newman, p. xi. Chapman's 
Library for the People. No. iv. 

% Preface to the Creed of Christendom, by W= E ; Greg. 1851, p. xvi. 



106 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[spirit of pride and 
IV. If the Infidel seek no self-glorification in the demo- 

otherwise un- lition of Christianity, why cannot he leave it to God 
belief would con- to destroy it himself, as He surely will, if it be not His 
!^ n Jf eU with own work? Or, more strictly to speak to him in his 
own language, why not leave it to the operation of the 
natural course of events to bring to nought that which if false must neces- 
sarily perish of its own accord ? Silently, gradually, far more mercifully, 
thus the work would be accomplished. Tender feelings would be spared, 
old institutions, that have confessedly some good in them, would live out 
their time, till new and better, if such there be, should be ready to take 
their place. Surely this is what a reverence for Nature and benevolence 
to man would suggest, if the impatient forwardness of irritable egoism did 
not thrust private convictions upon public notice, and by this self-gratifica- 
tion spread the infection of doubt and dismay amidst the unprepared 
multitudes. 



THAT INFIDELITY IS INDUCED BY THE DESIRE 

V. The principle of the Infidel is that he is a law to 

It refuses an himself. As, in the Pride of Reason, he rebels against 
AuthoritativeLaw faith upon authority, so does he naturally resent any 
of Morality. external restriction upon his moral and sensational nature. 

As his Intellect craves dominion for itself in the sphere of understanding, 
so do all his impulses of feeling and passion demand their free operation 
and full gratification ; — to be held in check indeed by worldly prudence, 
and not to be permitted to become an offence to fellow-beings j* but with- 
out being subjected to any law of restraint imposed as the expression of 
tbe Divine Will : — that is to say, that man himself, and not his Maker, 
is to be the judge how far his passions and sensual desires are well to be 
indulged. 

Our principle is that man's whole nature needs to be in a state of 
voluntary subjection to Divine control. To calculate " what will produce 
the greatest happiness to the greatest number," serves very well as an effort 
towards abstract theory, but can never be really accomplished with man's 
limited means of knowledge, nor if it could would it avail for the practical 
direction of conscience. When a man is called upon to act in emergencies, 
he must not have to argue and balance amidst conflicting and importunate 
motives and temptations, but he must have an authoritative law ; not a 
law made by himself or his fellow-mortals, which himself is always free 
to abrogate, but one given from above him, based on his religion, and 
sanctioned by express demonstration of Divine Wisdom, and of Divine 
Power for its enforcement. 



* See Social Statics, by Herbert Spencer. 1851. p. 77. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



107 



SELF-SUFFICIENCY.] 

IV. There is a current sophism, that " though Christianity be not 
true, yet there is no harm in believing it, — it is erring on the safe side" — 
as if safety could ever consist in falsehood. It is the first principle of 
philosophy, that there is no error that is not pernicious ; if it were only 
for taking up the room of truth. But there is no truth or error that is 
purely speculative, and that has not its positive practical consequences, 
much less religious truth or error. When, as is now the case, old faith 
is daily degenerating into hypocrisy, it is evident that all morality asso- 
ciated with it must be vitiated also, and poison be infused into the very 
springs of the soul. To profess to receive as religion what is secretly 
recognized as false, is demoralizing to the whole nature. 

"In general : wherever religion places itself in contradiction with reason, 
it places itself also in contradiction with the moral sense. Only with the 
sense of truth co-exists the sense of the right and good. Depravity of 
understanding is always depravity of heart. He who deludes and cheats 
his understanding, has not a veracious, honourable heart ; sophistry corrupts 

the whole man."* Therefore, the " Infidel" may well be animated by a 

pure and honest zeal in speaking forth the truth that he thinks to be in him. 

TO ESCAPE FROM MORAL RESTRAINT. 

V. It would be difficult to find language clearer and stronger than that 
of Butler, to express the capability of man to be a law to himself : " No- 
thing can be more evident, than that, exclusive of revelation, man cannot 
be considered as a creature left by his Maker to act at random, and live 
at large up to the extent of his natural power, as passion, humour, wil- 
fulness, happen to carry him ^ which is the condition brute creatures are 
in : but that, from his make, constitution, or nature, he is in the strictest 
and most proper sense a law to himself. He hath the rule of right within : . 
what is wanting is only that he honestly attend to it. The inquiries 
which have been made by men of leisure after some general rule, the 
conformity to, or disagreement from which, should denominate our ac- 
tions good or evil, are in many respects of great service. Yet let any 
plain honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, 
Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or is it evil ? 
I do not in the least doubt, but that this question would be answered 
agreeably to truth and virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any 
circumstance. Neither do there appear any cases which look like excep- 
tions to this ; but those of superstition and of partiality to ourselves. . . 
But allowing that mankind hath the rule of right within himself, yet 
it may be asked, 4 What obligations are we under to attend to and follow 
it V I answer : it has been proved that man by his nature is a law to 
himself, without the particular distinct consideration of the positive sanc- 
tions of that law ; the rewards and punishments which we feel, and those 
which from the light of reason we have ground to believe, are annexed 



* Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, p. 244. 



108 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[DESIRE TO ESCAPE 

"Some authors of great and distinguished merit, have, I think, ex- 
pressed themselves in a manner, which may occasion some danger, to 
careless readers, of imagining the whole of virtue to consist in singly aim- 
ing, according to the best of their judgment, at promoting the happiness 
of mankind in the present state ; and the whole of vice, in doing what 
they foresee, or might foresee, is likely to produce an overbalance of 
unhappiness in it : than which mistakes, none can be conceived more 
terrible. For it is certain, that some of the most shocking instances of 
injustice. . .may, in many supposable cases, not have the appearance of 
being likely to produce an overbalance of misery in the present state ; 
perhaps sometimes may have the contrary appearance. . . The happiness of 
the world is the concern of him who is the lord and the proprietor of 
it :. nor do we know what we are about, when we endeavour to promote 
the good of maukind in any ways, but those which he has directed ; that 
is indeed in all ways not contrary to veracity and justice."* 

Butler argues powerfully that we have natural instincts to discern be- 
tween virtue and vice ; but the authority of these depends upon their 
being the writing of God upon our hearts. Paley also, who makes the 
"right" synonymous with the "expedient", while he supposes it only 
discoverable by men as the result of experience;, makes it in its essence 
identical with the Will of God. f Its derivation from God is what gives 
its authority to morality in the view of the Christian, — who also sees the 
necessity, in the degenerate state of human nature, for a confirmation 
and additional sanction to it by Revelation ; — while the Infidel, on the 
contrary, confines his view of morality to human nature, resting upon 
the "nature of things", and making it as cold a science as any in 
physics. Many indeed, not professed Atheists, say in words, that ' £ duty 
means fulfilment of the Divine Will",! but the whole tendency of their 
writings shews that they use Deity merely as an adjective to express their 
estimated quality of the abstract order of things, — their own judgment 
being of course the sole standard of approbation, — which is a real abnega- 
gation of Deity. The Infidel says, the rule of nature is divine because it 
is right ; the Christian says, it is right because it is divine. It is this 
religious view of morality only which can make it truly and efficiently act 
upon the heart. It must be held, not the deduction of reason, but the 
positive command of God. Morality can be a vital principle only when 
it is felt to spring from a Living Source. § 

* Butler's Dissertation on the Xature of Virtue, near the end. 

+ Moral Philosophy. Book n. ch. IV. " To inquire what is the will of God be- 
comes the whole business of morality. There are two methods of coming at this : I. 
by his express declarations, where they are to be had, and which must be sought for 
in Scripture. II. by what we can discover of his designs and disposition from his 
works, i.e. from the light of nature ; and the method of coming at the will of God 
by the latter, is to inquire into the tendency of any action to promote or diminish the 
general happiness." 

+ Social Statics, p. 76. § [This view is so clearly expressed in the followirjg 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 109 

FROM MORAL RESTRAINT.] 

to it. The question then carries its own answer along with it. Your 
obligation to obey this law, is its being the law of your nature. That 
your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action, is itself 
alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the 
way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it, 
that it is our natural guide ; the guide assigned us by the Author of our 
nature : it therefore belongs to our condition of being, it is our duty to 
walk in that path, and follow this guide, without looking about to see 
whether we may not possibly forsake them with impunity."* 

A man who entertains such a noble idea of human nature as this, and 
who makes it, as Butler does, the main substratum of all his belief, — 
the great reality, the known fact, by which all doctrinal theories are to 
be tested, — is already a denier of Christianity at heart. He does not be- 
lieve that man is by nature corrupt, and in a state of alienation from 
God : and, accordingly, he does not really feel the need of a revelation : 
nor can he, therefore, ever be really convinced that it has taken place, f 

. But the need for a general rule of duty is stated with greater force, 
when it is taken into consideration, that the constitution of all men is 
not found in experience to be such as to direct them instinctively aright. 
Hence the moral sense that is to serve for an unerring guide, must be 
the aggregate sense of mankind ; which has to be gathered by long ob- 
servation and reflection, and then to be reduced to simple principles. It 
cannot be said that this has yet been done ; men are only feeling their 
way towards it ; and they are obstructed in so doing by the arbitrary 
rules laid down in the name of religion. The science of morality has to 
be collected by degrees like all other science ; as each step is carefully 
verified by experience, it will acquire certainty as great as that which be- 
longs to the world of matter. And in proportion as it gains this cer- 
tainty, and is recognized as universal, grand, and reliable truth, admira- 
tion for it springs up within the soul, and it becomes to it Divine. It is 
no matter of private, individual feeling ; it is the essence, the sublima- 
tion of the feeling of entire humanity. The power of moral feeling will 
thus be indefinitely exalted ; nor can that be a cold science which, in- 
stead of ignoring, raises feeling from a caprice into an immutable prin- 
ciple. And for its authority, what can be greater than that of known 
truth 1 When the law of moral consequences is recognized as fixed and 
absolute, the hope to escape from it would be as great madness as to resist 
the law of gravitation. 

* Upon Human Nature. Sermon HI. pp. 48, 49. 

f " A serious apprehension that Christianity may be true" (Analogy, last page) 
seems all that Butler thinks is to be attained, " The question," he says, Part II. 
ch. VIII., "is not at all whether the evidence of religion be satisfactory ; but whether 
it be, in reason, sufficient to prove aud discipline that virtue which it presupposes" : 
thus making its adaptation to human nature the ultimate, and in fact the only test of 
its truth, — which is all that any opponent of Revelation would require. Bub Butler 
shows a want of faith in the power both of Divine truth and of human veracity, when 
he supposes that the doubtful surmise of the possible truth of Christianity to be 
attained by accepting all the assumptions and evasions on which his own argument 
depends, can obtain from men "a regard not the same exactly, but in many respects 
nearly the same, with what a full conviction of its truth would lay them under." 
( Analogy, last page.) 



110 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[desire to escape 

VI. Christianity gives a needed enforcement to the natural 

Much more law of Morality, by the new motive it awakens of Love 
the Christian law, to God, and by its promise of a future life of retribution : 
whi . ch ^JJJJ —but it also does more. It opens principles of a far 
entir^nature * ° more profound and elevated character than belong to the 
moral feelings of which the seeds are already implanted in 
humanity. Its design is not merely to make man perfect in his own nature, 
but to raise him above it. He was given first a constitution to fit him to be 
a denizen of this world ; but Christianity is to make him an heir of immor- 
tality. In Christ he becomes a new creature, and must rise above the 

world and his own worldly self. Revelation has been given in successive 

stages, as mankind were prepared for it. There may well be believed to 
have been a primseval one, since it is otherwise unaccountable how the 
all but universal idea of religion should have been attained in the barba- 
rous infant state of the world ; of which the trace is called by us the 
natural law of religion and morality.* Sustained by this, man was 
never left a prey to those temptations of the flesh which resulted from the 
animal propensities given to him as necessary to maintain his corporeal 
existence, while at the same time he was left free in his power to indulge 
them, as a trial of his virtue. Under the Mosaic dispensation, while man- 
kind was still in a state of childhood, a law of express commandment was 
given, with temporal rewards and penalties attached to it. But in the new 
covenant of Grace, intended for those who should attain the full stature 
of men in Christ Jesus, a higher measure of obligation was unfolded. 
Under this they should.no longer be subject to mere law ; but by faith be 
exalted into that union with God which raises above the necessity for 
law, — makes them, like God, superior to law. The whole law is already 
fulfilled, and merged in Love, to the soul that has by faith become one 
with God. Faith has overcome the world. This new power which super- 
sedes, not by opposition to, but by the complete fulfilment of, Law, acts 
by diminishing the desires which are the source of temptation. Hence 
Christians are no longer taught like the Israelites, by express prohibitions 
of particular heinous sins : — it is now shown them that the whole body 
must be brought under subjection, since they must love God with all their 

sentence, by a writer whose opinions nevertheless generally rank with those of Infi- 
dels, that it may be quoted on this side:] 

" No ethical conceptions are possible at all, — except as floating shreds of unattached 
thought — without a religious background : and the sense of responsibility, the agony 
of shame, the inner reverence for justice, first find their meaning and vindication in a 
supreme holiness that rules the world. Nor can any one be penetrated with the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong, without recognizing it as valid for all free beings, 
and incapable of local and arbitrary change. His feeling insists on its permanent re- 
cognition and omnipresent sway : and this unity in the Moral Law carries him to the 
unity of the Divine Legislator. Theism is thus the indispensable postulate of con- 
science, — its objective counterpart and justification, without which its inspirations 
would be illusions, and its veracities themselves a lie." Article on English Religion: 
its origin and present types, in "Westminster Review, IX. January 1854, p. 75. 

* Butler's Analogy, Part I, ch. vi. p. 144. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY, 



111 



PROM MORAL RESTRAINT.] 

VI. Mankind, then, " hath the rule of right within itself : what is 
wanting is only that men attend honestly to it." This rule is sure and 
sufficient. All that goes beyond it seems to us unnecessary, false, and 
pernicious. Therefore we fully admit the charge of rebelling against all 
that part of Christian doctrine which aims to make out of us other beings 
than we are. Our present duty is with the present world ; for that our 
constitution is fitted, and would not be fitted if a portion of it were sup- 
pressed, out of regard to a future unknown state of things. 

"But this rule of right," it may be said, "though ascertained and 
fixed by universal consent, would still be wanting in the crowning motive 
of morality — love towards God. The philosophic moralist can only say, 
you are happier on the whole for sacrificing a part of your happiness ; or, 
in an enlarged view, it is consistent with order, and the good of the whole, 
that you should sacrifice yourself or a part of yourself : but he who loves 
God, feels that love inspiring all he does ; he asks no other motive, and 
no other recompense ; it is not the command of authority, but the ne- 
cessity of his deepest and highest nature that he obeys." — It is certainly 
a better motive to obey from love, than from a regard to reward or punish- 
ment awaiting ourselves ; but, as it seems to us, a still purer motive than 
love to a Person, is the love of Right for its own sake ; deduced from a 
consideration of the consequences that will affect not self alone, but man- 
kind in general. The highest idea of Deity is that of Abstract Bight. 
In proportion as it sinks into that of a Person, who must necessarily 
have human attributes, and only thus can become properly an object of 
love, superstition begins to degrade the idea, and to make of God only 
an Infinite Egoism. 

" So far as God is regarded as separate from man, as an individual 
being, so far are duties to God separated from duties to man : — faith is, 
in the religious sentiment, separated from morality, from love. Let it 
not be replied that faith in God is faith in love, in goodness itself ; and 
that thus faith is itself an expression of a morally good disposition. In 
the idea of personality, ethical definitions vanish ; they are only collateral 
things, mere accidents. The chief thing is the subject, the divine Ego. 
Love to God himself, since it is love to a personal being, is not a moral 
but a personal love. Innumerable devout hymns breathe nothing but love 
to the Lord ; but in this love there appears no spark of an exalted moral 
idea or disposition. — Faith is the highest to itself, because its object is 
a divine personality. Hence it makes salvation dependent on itself, not 
on the fulfilment of common human duties. But that which has eternal 
salvation as its consequence, necessarily becomes in the mind of man the 
chief thing. As therefore inwardly morality is subordinate to faith, so 
it must also be outwardly, practically subordinate, nay sacrificed, to faith. 
It is inevitable that there should be actions in which faith exhibits itself 
in distinction from morality, or rather in contradiction with it ; — actions 
which are morally bad, but which according to faith are laudable, because 
they have in view the advantage of faith. All salvation depends on faith : 



112 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[desire to 

strength. Even those gratifications of sense which in a worldly meaning 
are innocent, cannot be indulged in with enjoyment for their own sake, 
without interfering with the higher pleasures and the eternal welfare of the 
soul. The true Christian must count all but loss for the sake of Christ ; 
he must feel that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Even the 
best of his earthly affections must not be freely yielded to, but all must be 
held in subordination to the heavenly love. And, paradoxical as it may 
sound, but manifesting the consistency of the Divine ordinations, it is 
in fact only when he has thus learned to cast the world under his feet, and 
to despise its pleasures, that he is first able really to enjoy it. In the sere- 
nity of his mind, fixed upon immutable good, he can partake of the 
passing indulgences that bestrew his path below, mementoes of Divine 
beneficence, without being agitated by eager desires, and fear of 
loss, or dread of any kind of earthly deprivation, which has become 
to him of so small account : showing that, by his very denial of self and 
the world, the Christian has the promise and the possession of the life that 

now is, as well as of that which is to come. But this is inconceivable, 

this is doctrine too hard for the natural man, who has no sublime motive 
to lift him above the things that perish. He resents the limitation of his 
present enjoyments, and will not endure that the free exercise of all his 
powers should be curtailed by the "Will of a superior Being, under a 
penalty for disobedience. Sorely is he tempted by all his animal instincts, 
by all his greediness of worldly pleasure, by even his better feelings, his 
love of family and friends, his love of learning and of art, all which, 
though good and ennobling in an inferior degree, are apt to become in- 
ordinate and induce an engrossing attachment to temporal things ; — sorely 
is the natural man tempted by all these, to find out that the prohibition 
laid upon his pleasures is without authority, that there is a flaw in the 
document, a forgery in the signature. 



VII. Thus the main strength of the opposition to Christi- 

anity lies in the sensual nature of man. Where the 
Pride of Reason slays its thousands, the love of pleasure 
slays its tens of thousands. For Religion, and Religion 
alone, places upon it that effectual check which it revolts 
against. The principle of the Infidel is Freedom of Self-development, and 



Without religion 
man's sensual na- 
ture gains pre- 
dominance. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



113 



FROM MORAL RESTRAINT.] 

it follows that all again depends on the salvation of faith. If faith is en- 
dangered, eternal salvation and the honour of God are endangered. Hence 
faith absolves from every thing ; for, strictly considered, it is the sole 
subjective good in man, as God is the sole good and positive being : — the 
highest commandment therefore is: Believe!" "Faith does indeed make 
man happy ; but thus much is certain : it infuses into him no really moral 
dispositions. If it ameliorate man, if it have moral dispositions as its con- 
sequence, this proceeds solely from the inward conviction of the irrever- 
sible reality of morals : — a conviction independent of religious faith. It 
is morality alone, and by no means faith, that cries out in the conscience 
of the believer, — thy faith is nothing, if it does not make thee good. It 
is not to be denied that the assurance of eternal salvation, the forgiveness 
of sins, the sense of favour and release from all punishment, inclines man 
to do good. The man who has this confidence possesses all things ; he is 
happy ; he becomes indifferent to the good things of this world ; no envy, 
no avarice, no ambition, no sensual desire, can enslave him ; everything 
earthly vanishes in the prospect of heavenly grace and eternal bliss. But 
in him good works do not proceed from essentially virtuous dispositions. 
It is not love, not the object of love, man, the basis of all morality, which 
is the motive of his good works. No ! he does good not for the sake of 
goodness itself, not for the sake of man, but for the sake of God ; — out 
of gratitude to God, who has done all for him, and for whom therefore he 
must on his side do all that lies in his power. He forsakes sin, because 
it wounds God, his Saviour, his Benefactor. The idea of virtue is here 
the idea of compensatory sacrifice. God has sacrificed himself for man ; 
therefore man must sacrifice himself to God. The greater the sacrifice, 
the better the deed. The more anything contradicts man and Nature, 
the greater the abnegation, the greater is the virtue. This merely negative 
idea of goodness has been especially realized and developed by Catholicism. 
Its highest moral idea is that of sacrifice ; hence the high significance 
attached to the denial of sexual love, — to virginity. Chastity, or rather 
virginity, is the characteristic virtue of the Catholic faith, — for this reason, 
that it has no basis in Nature. It is the most fanatical, transcendental, 

I fantastical virtue, the virtue of the supranaturalistic faith ; — to faith, the 
highest virtue, but in itself no virtue at all. Thus faith makes that a 
virtue which intrinsically, substantially, is no virtue : it has therefore no 
sense of virtue ; it must necessarily depreciate true virtue, because it so 
exalts a merely apparent virtue, because it is guided by no idea but that 
of the negation, the contradiction of human nature."* 

VII. " The aspect in which the Positive Philosophy presents man is 
as favourable to his moral discipline, as it is fresh and stimulating to his 
intellectual taste. We find ourselves suddenly living and moving in the 
midst of the universe,— as a part of it, and not as its aim and object. 
"We find ourselves living, not under capricious and arbitrary conditions, 
unconnected with the constitution and movements of the whole, but under 



* Essence of Christianity, pp. 258-261. 



i 



1U 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[desire to escape 

in practice this is evidently liable to become chiefly the indulgence of that 
portion of self which is always most importunate for gratification. Reason 
is powerless to hold the mastery over those unruly passions which have once 
been permitted to assert themselves. But in fact the natural course of 
Infidelity shows that the attempt at such mastery by reason, if made at all, 
is soon abandoned, as in consistency it must. It is not merely as a reck- 
less antidote to despair that the Infidel says in his heart, " let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die," — and it is impossible that in some manner 
and in some degree this feeling should not arise in the breast of every 
unbeliever, whether confessed to himself or not j — but he argues too, 
"It is as lawful for me to eat and drink as to act out any other impulse 
of my nature, as, for instance, to spend my life in laborious benevolence : 
— all the impulses of nature are lawful and good alike" 



VIII. This open setting forth of the right to sensual in- 

Hence lax no- dulgence, (happily not carried out by all unbelievers,) 
rlage & ^ mt m£U> can nar dty be denied to be the ordinary consequence of 
their principles — or want of principles. It shows itself 
eminently with regard to the subject of most vital importance in practical 
morality, of marriage, on the estimation of which the abandonment of re- 
ligious restraint acts immediately and inevitably : for reverence for the 
sanctity of the marriage-tie is founded upon religion, and falls with it. 
Infidelity is almost invariably associated with loose notions as to the nature 
of the union contracted between husband and wife. 



IX. Neither is it a mere vulgar prejudice that classes to- 

infideiity leads gether Infidels with Socialists and Communists. Those 
to wild social pro- who have shaken off tlle bonds of faith iu Christianity, are 

open to, and mostly greedy for, the wildest speculations 
of all kinds. They are eager for the vindication of their personal rights ; 
but also there is a sense of individual weakness, now especially that they 
have, as it were, cut themselves off from God, that makes them cling to 
their fellow-men. They have given up the doctrine that satisfied man's 
individuality by showing that every soul is precious in the sight of its 
Maker ; they have relinquished the claim to belong to the communion of 
God's saints : and the demand of their nature both for personal recognition 
and social union, craves its satisfaction in their immediate condition. They 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



115 



PROM MORAL RESTRAINT.] 

great, general, invariable laws, which operate on us as a part of the whole. 
Certainly, I can conceive of no instruction so favourable to aspiration as 
that which shows us how great are our faculties, how small our knowledge, 
how sublime the heights to which we may hope to attain, and how bound- 
less an infinity may be assumed to spread out beyond. We find here 
indications in passing of the evils we suffer from our low aims, our selfish 
passions, and oie proud ignorance ; and in contrast with them, animating 
displays of the beauty and glory of the everlasting laws, and of the sweet 
serenity, lofty courage, and noble resignation that are the natural conse- 
quence of pursuits so pure, and aims so true, as those of Positive 
Philosophy. Pride of intellect surely abides with those who insist on 
belief without evidence, and on a philosophy derived from their own 
intellectual action, without material and corroboration from without, and 
not with those who are too scrupulous and too humble to transcend evidence, 
and to add, out of their own imaginations, to that which is, and may be, 
referred to other judgments. If it be desired to extinguish presumption, to 
draw away from low aims, to fill life with worthy occupations and elevating 
pleasures, and to raise human hope and human effort to the highest 
attainable point, it seems to me that the best resource is the pursuit of 
Positive Philosophy, with its train of noble truths and irresistible induce- 
ments. The prospects it opens are boundless ; for among the laws it 
establishes that of human progress is conspicuous. The virtues it fosters 
are all those of which Man is capable ; and the noblest are those which are 
more eminently fostered. The habit of truth-seeking and truth-speaking, and 
of true dealing with self and with all things, is evidently a primary requisite ; 
and this habit once perfected, the natural conscience, thus disciplined, 
will train up all other moral attributes to some equality with it; 33 * 

VIII. The utility of legislative restrictions upon private conduct is at 
present chiefly denied, not by those who make light of moral principle, 
but by those who place the strongest reliance upon its force. With regard 
to marriage, Wilhelm von Humboldt says, ' ' Experience frequently con- 
vinces us, that just where law has imposed no fetters, morality most surely 
binds ; the idea of external coercion is one entirely foreign to an institution 
which, like matrimony, reposes only on inclination and an inward sense of 
duty."f Religion has its proper function in strengthening this moral 
principle ; but when it is made to give its sanction to human law, it only 
serves to render it incapable of amelioration. Marriage union can never be 
perfect while human beings are imperfect. The only means to improve it, 
is to improve them ; which cannot be done by legal enactments. If, never- 
theless, social regulations with respect to marriage are thought necessary, — 
as they are at present, by all except extreme theorists, — they must at least 
be made with a regard to human imperfection, and, in order that they may 
be wisely adapted to it, must be left open to re-adjustment and modification 

* The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Corate, freely translated and condensed 
by Harriet Martineau. Translator's Preface, pp. XIV. XV. 1856. Chapman's 
Quarterly Series, Nos. III. IV. 

f Quoted in the "Westminster Beview, October, 1854. p. 485. Article on The 

Sphere and Duties of Government. 



116 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[desire to escape 

must have what they want here and now. Let them only possess their own 
birth-rights, and they will make a heaven upon earth for themselves !— 
What should hinder them from working out their own devices ? — Since they 
have not respected the most venerable of all institutions, no others are 
sacred to them. Civil government, the rights of property, — all that stands 
in their way must be overthrown. Every thing becomes the theme of dis- 
cussion ; social order hangs upon a rotten thread, swayed by every caprice 
of popular opinion ; and if the license of thought and of selfish impulse grow 
into thorough licentiousness of character, and of actual deed, it is but the 
consummation to be expected. 



X. Consequent upon the breaking up of the ideas of 

It gives up Divine Law, and a Divine system of retribution, is the 
ail ideas of Moral abandonment of all proper sense of moral obligation and 
esponsibihty. responsibility. There is no feeling now that man's 
obedience is due as a mark of gratitude to the Creator, who when he 
called him into being gave him an immortal soul, dear to Himself, in 
charge to keep unpolluted by the world until he shall be required to render 
up an account of it. The Infidel finds himself in existence, he knows not 
whence or wherefore ; accident, or, if he be a logical necessarian, the 
fixed law of Fate, gave him a place in the world. "His character is 
formed for him, not by him"* — formed for him, not by God, but by 
circumstances. His crimes are the result of his organization, that being 
also the effect of circumstances before his birth. He is a mere machine, 
mechanically framed by the laws of Nature, mechanically acting himself. 
Merit or demerit are mere 'names applied to certain actions to denote their 
character, but without real meaning, since man is not properly the subject 
either of praise or blame, nor consequently of reward or punishment, 
otherwise than as these are the necessary consequence of his actions. 
Repentance and remorse are ideas utterly abjured and ignored. — It is 
evident that these doctrines, however professed in words, and abstrusely 
argued, never have been, and never can be, practically acted on : but 
they can pervert the mind. At all events, it must be urged against this 
irreligious Necessarianism, that its outward, striking features are mani- 
festly at variance with morality ; it stands patent, at least to vulgar 
apprehension, as a bold excuse for sin : — and as such is attractive to all 
those whose base inclinations shrink from the faithful castigation of con- 
science and religion. 



* See the works of Robert Owen, passim. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



117 



FROM MORAL RESTRAINT.] 

according to enlightened experience. But when the stamp of religion, or 
rather of the priesthood, is affixed to those human interpretations of the 
law of marriage, they are sealed up against all amendment, and the 
possibility of being brought into conformity with reason and nature ; and 
thus the legal enactment itself is made answerable for the crimes and 
sufferings attendant both upon the attempted obedience to it, and the open 
defiance of it. In both cases, the guilt of some, and the martyrdom of 
others, is the necessary consequence : — martyrdom in the case of defiance, 
because public opinion has to be resisted until by this means it is brought 
to a better appreciation of the subject. Meantime, it is indeed true, that 
in this resistance, there is apt to be a reactionary relaxation of principle, 
that may be deplorably productive of immorality. 

IX. In like manner, the religious sanction given to political principles 
has kept them back from the influence of progressive civilization. Happily, 
the idea of the "divine right of kings" is fast becoming exploded; but 
much political superstition remains, which has to be violently broken away 
from. In the various social schemes which must then arise, the only 
danger to be feared, is from the sudden reaction after despotic oppression, 
and from the want of that discipline of mind and character that can result 
only from political independence and enlightened education. 

X. " Man is responsible in the only way in which responsibility^could 
be of any use. The Creator has attached it in the shape of inevitable pain, 
moral or physical, to every breach of his laws, moral or physical. . . The 
expression of praise or blame is necessary and proper, although a man 
could in no case act otherwise than he did under the circumstances ; for 
approbation and disapproval act as motives. . If there were no necessary 
connection between motives and actions, if a man might refuse or not to be 
guided by the former, then, indeed, all praise and blame would be useless."* 

It is undeniable that the Christian view of obedience as a debt to God, 
a mark of love to him, and an appointed condition of obtaining eternal 
happiness, furnishes peculiarly powerful motives, the loss of which natural 
religion appears at first inadequate to replace. But the motives of the latter, 
if they are less stimulating to the emotional nature and personal feelings of 
men, are more steady in their certain operation, and more disinterested in 
their principle. To believe that well-doing is really the best for man, — to 
seek the truth, and to act up to the truth possessed, with faith in it, and for 
the love of it, — this is a rule of life sufficient for a noble heart, without need- 
ing any external enforcement. It is to conscience that man is responsible ; 
conscience, which is the expression of his personal desire — which demands 
it as a debt of satisfaction to his own nature — to contribute to the action of 
that great principle of Justice and Right, which is the best thing he knows, 
the most beautiful and venerable, the only source of real good to man, 
and which therefore is to him Divine. 

* Philosophy of Necessity, Vol. I. pp. 177, 179, 180. 



118 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH 
LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING 

XI. The sense of the insufficiency of the means of know- 

The moral need ledge afforded by nature to satisfy the moral need of man, 
of man demanded was that which led the way for the reception of revela- 
reveiation. ^ QJ1 . an( ^ wag on iy wnen thus explained and vindicated 

that' a true religion of nature, — i.e. a moral religion and not a mere super- 
stitious wonder at physical phenomena, — first became possible. But the 
opponents and defenders of Christianity alike have been apt to forget this 
true genesis of the religion that is now called natural ; and have taken as 
the assumed basis of their arguments, that which is in fact the result to be 
obtained by tbem, namely, the Moral Government of the World by God : 
— which was no other than a vague conception, until Christianity gave it 
the strength of an assured belief. The difficulties of nature have driven 
men to revelation ; there they have been met, not by explanation, but by 
a demand on faith, — by Divine Promises, — above all, by the assertion, 
the proof, that God may be trusted. So far from clearing up all diffi- 
culties to reason, Christianity has similar ones of its own ; and those who, 
on account of them, reject its all-sufficient compensatory assurance, are 
thrown back upon the perplexities of Nature without hope of solution. 



XII. "The Christian speaks on this wise: — 4 1 find, in 

Moral diffieul- reference to Christianity as in reference to Theism, what 

ties in nature, are appears to me an immense preponderance of evidence of 

as great as in Re- various kinds in favour of its truth ; but both alike, I 
■relation. The ' ' 

Christian and the involved in many difficulties which I acknowledge 

Atheist are alone to be insurmountable, and in many mysteries which I 

consistent. cannot fathom. I believe the conclusions in spite of 

them. As to the revelation, I see some of its discrepancies are the effect 

of transcription and corruption ; others are the result of omissions of one 

or more of the writers which, if supplied, would show that they are 

apparent only ; of others I can suggest no explanations at all ; and, over 

and above these, I see difficulties of doctrine which I can no more profess 

to solve than I can the parallel perplexities in Nature and Providence, 

and especially those involved in the permitted phenomenon of an infinity 

of physical and moral evil. As to these difficulties, I simply submit to 

them, because I think the rejection of the evidence for the truths which 

they embarrass would involve me in a much greater difficulty. With 

regard to many of the difficulties, in both cases, I see that the progress 

of knowledge and science is continually tending to dissipate some, and to 

diminish, if not remove, the weight of others : I see that a dawning light 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



119 



CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 

IN A MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD. 

XI. " Whilst nature was imperfectly understood, and the intellectual 
powers were but little cultivated, the many felt themselves incapable, by 
means of their own native powers, of drawing clearly from the universe 
around them the conclusions which occasionally seemed to break indistinctly 
upon them, but which their minds required in full assurance. Earth and 
skies continually suggested the idea of a First Cause, the knowledge of 
which seemed to be a natural want of the mind, and must influence mate- 
rially the conduct. But was this instinctive feeling to be taken as full 
evidence of the existence of that towards which it was directed ? — and if 
not, how should minds oppressed with worldly cares, uneducated, or having 
but imperfect help from science, work out such a vast conclusion from their 
own resources ? A word from Heaven would aid their weakness, solve their 
doubts, and afford them the delight of faith, without the trouble of acquir- 
ing it. "What wonder, then, that men professing to have received this 
message from heaven, or to be its interpreters, should find a ready submis- 
sion to their claims, succeed in having them admitted without a very rigid 
scrutiny, and continue to find docile recipients even long after they had 
begun, instead of bread, to give stones ? During the ages of mankind's 
moral and intellectual minority, it seems indeed natural that authority, 
derived from the ascendancy of some few superior individuals, should exer- 
cise guardianship over the human mind, and provide its necessary food, 
until full-grown reason should be able both to guide and nourish itself. 
Hence the philanthropist regards with complacency the various Revelations 
which have afforded to men spiritual supplies, although not of unmixed 
purity ; and hears, in the supposed direct voices from heaven, prelude- 
sounds of the voice which speaks through nature and reason, in a tone 
rising slowly into clearness in the lapse of ages."* 

But then, while the instinctive desire for knowledge respecting a First 
Cause, and the future destiny of mankind, thus satisfied itself in reve- 
lation, by giving to itself the hasty sanction of Divine certainty, it was 
making what in that early stage of intelligence men thought ought 
to be true, become a settled possession to the mind, which has, by those 
who have feelingly appropriated it, to be again painfully parted with. 
It is very true that this religious trust comes to us from Chris- 
tianity, because Christianity was the expression of the feeling as soon 
as it sprang up to definite form in the world's experience. The re- 
ligion of nature at that certain point, the highest yet attained, embodied 
itself in Christianity, and historically, actually, cannot quit the association. 
Hence it is still in a Christian spirit that many rejecters of Christianity 
appeal to Nature : and have to find her obdurate to that appeal until the 
state of feeling is again reduced to its proper channel. — Meanwhile, this 
confidence of the soul in the fulfilment of its own desires, (the cause, and, 
in its exaggerated form the result, of Christianity,) itself affords, when 
regarded as a natural product, the strongest argument to the advocate of 



* Christian Theism, by the Author of Origin of Christianity. 1839. pp. 19, 20. 



120 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

[no ground for belief in the 

now glimmers on many portions of the void where continuous darkness 
once reigned ; though that very light has also a tendency to disclose other 
difficulties ; for, as the sphere of knowledge increases, the outline of 
darkness beyond also increases, and increases even in a greater ratio. But I 
also find, I frankly admit, that on many of my difficulties, and especially 
that connected with the origin of evil, and other precisely analogous 
difficulties of Scriptures, no light whatever is cast ; to the solution of 
them man has not made the slightest conceivable approximation. These 
things I submit to, as an exercise of my faith and a test of my docility.' 
Thus speaks the Christian ; and the Atheist and the Sceptic occupy ground 
as consistent. They say, ' We agree with Christians, that the Bible con- 
tains no greater difficulties than those involved in the inscrutable consti- 
tution and course of nature ; but on the very principles on which the 
nationalist, or Spiritualist, or Deist, or whatever he pleases to call him- 
self, rejects the Divine origin of the former, we are compelled to go a few 
steps further, and deny — or doubt — the divine origin of the latter. It 
is true that the Bible presents no greater difficulties than the external 
universe and its administration j (it cannot involve greater ;) but if 
those difficulties are sufficient to justify the denial or doubt of the 
divine authorship of the one, they are sufficient to justify denial or 
doubt about the Divine origin of the other.' — You ought, on the 
principle on which you reject so much of the Bible, — namely, that 
it does not harmonize with the deductions of your intellect, the in- 
stincts of conscience, the intuitions of the 1 spiritual faculty,' — to 
become Manichseans at the least. . . Butler leaves two alternatives, and 
only two, in my judgment open ; leaves two parties untouched ; one is the 
Christian, and the other is the Atheist or the Sceptic j but I am pro- 
foundly convinced he does not leave a consistent footing for anything 
between. To refute him, you have to show that this world does not exhibit 
the inequalities — the miseries — the apparent caprice in its administration — 
the involuntary ignorance — the enormous wrongs — the wide- spread sorrow 
and death it does. . . If you can show to an unbeliever in Christianity, 
who is yet (as most are) a theist, that any objection derived from its 
apparent repugnance to wisdom or goodness applies equally to the ' con- 
stitution and course of nature', you do fairly compel him (as long as he 
remains a theist) to admit that that objection ought not to have weight 
with him. He has indeed an alternative ; that of Atheism or Scepticism ; 
but it is clear that he must give up either his argument or his — theism. 
It may be called, indeed, an argument ad hominem ; but as almost every 
unbeliever in Christianity is a man of the above stamp, it is of wide ap- 
plication. This is the fair issue to which Butler brings his argument ; 
and the conclusiveness of his logic has been shown in this, that, how- 
ever easily e analogies' may be c retorted,' the parties affected by it have 
never answered it."* 



* Eclipse of Faith, 1852. pp. 408-412. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



121 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.] 

natural religion. For, " it has not unfrequently happened, that the untu- 
tored feelings of mankind have anticipated the results of philosophic inves- 
tigation. Nature (the instinct of feeling) has spoken first ; reasoning and 
science have followed slowly with a confirmation of her voice. . . Science 
and philosophy are, however, yet in their infancy, and especially as regards 
their application to subjects supposed to be connected with morality and 
religion. The belief that Revelation has assumed these subjects as her own 
peculiar ground, has hitherto impeded the growth of free inquiry upon them 
amongst nations most competent to the task. Released from this restraint, 
and having unbounded scope to traverse the creation in search of evidence, 
mankind may reach points in moral discovery which at present would be at 
once pronounced visionary. The achievements of mechanical and chemical 
science may be equalled or outdone by those of moral and intellectual re- 
search ; and a clearer confession be forced out of nature concerning the 
character of the Creator and the ultimate destination of man."* 

To those who thus truly face the perplexities of nature, the solution is, in- 
deed, not at hand. No matter : for the present, at least, faith or philosophy 
must serve them ; — they must do without it. — At all events, the only possi- 
bility of finding a real solution is by seeking it in the right direction ; and 
that is, by simply inquiring, what is : which may truly be called Divine 
truth, as opposed to human theory. 

" In the attempts made by man to explain the varied phenomena of the 
universe, history reveals to us three distinct and characteristic stages, by 
Comte named the Theological (Supernatural), the Metaphysical, and the 
Positive. In the first, man explains phenomena by some fanciful concep- 
tion suggested in the analogies of his own consciousness ; in the second, by 
some a priori conception of inherent or superadded entities, suggested in 
the constancy observable in phenomena, which constancy leads him to sus- 
pect that they are not produced by any intervention on the part of an 
external being, but are owing to the nature of the things themselves ; in the 
third he explains phenomena by adhering solely to these constancies of suc- 
cession and co-existence ascertained inductively, and recognized as the laws 
of nature (or rather, to use a term less liable to objection and misapprehen- 
sion, the methods of naturef). In the theological stage, Nature is regarded 
as the theatre whereon the arbitrary wills of Superior Powers play their 
varying and variable parts. Men are startled at unusual occurrences, and 
explain them by fanciful conceptions. A solar eclipse is understood, and 
unerringly predicted to a moment, by Positive Science ; but in the theo- 
logical epoch it appeared that some dragon had swallowed the sun ! In the 
metaphysical stage the notion of capricious divinities is replaced by that of 
abstract entities, whose modes of action are, however, invariable ; and in 
this recognition of invariableness lies the germ of scieuce. In this epoch, 
Nature has a " horror of a vacuum", organised beings have a " vital prin- 
ciple", and matter has a vis inertice. In the positive stage, the invariable- 
ness of phenomena under similar conditions is recognized as the sum total of 
human investigation, and beyond the laws which regulate phenomena, it is 



Origin of Christianity, p. 486. 



f See Leader, May 8, 1852. 



122 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground tor belief in the 

XIII. Let then him who objects against Christianity that its 

The principle leading doctrines are opposed to the natural moral in- 
of Justice is not gtincts of man, test his principle fairly by carrying it 

apparentthrough- .., , . ... ,. . , _ J J . J & 

out the adminis- wltl1 bim to a iLke scru tmy in *o the constitution and 
tration of the course of nature, without shrinking from the conse- 
world - quences to which it will lead him. Let him openly face 

the broad fact — to him the fearful issue — that nowhere will he meet with 
the full and entire gratification of that moral perception which he finds 
in himself, and which he sets up as the criterion of the abstract Just and 
Good. He must acknowledge that, judged in this manner, with the ex- 
clusion of all aid from Christianity, the moral order of the universe 
appears defective and inexplicable. 

He is offended at the arbitrary distinction made in the scheme of sal- 
vation between the elect and the reprobate : — is then in nature one man 
not born to honour and another to dishonour ? or is it supposed to be 
from a prospective regard to the merits of individuals, that one comes 
into the world inheriting wealth and friends, bodily health and mental 
dispositions towards virtue, while another creeps into existence loathly 
with disease, prone to vice, surrounded by all kinds of adverse circum- 
stances, the consequences of which original condition attend him through- 
out his whole course here, and if he be destined to another life, will pur- 
sue him beyond the grave ? 

It is shocking to Justice that the innocent should suffer for the sins of 
the guilty : — but this is the ordinary, every-day course of things.* " The 
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," 
is a proverb that tells a very old experience. It is as clear in natural 
philosophy as it is in Scripture, that the whole race pays the penalty for 
the transgressions of its first progenitors ; — nay, that every human being is 
punished for all the wrong-doing that has been committed before and 
around' him. Thus only, indeed, is constituted the brotherhood of man- 
kind, who are knit together in common interests and mutual dependence, 
by the necessity of suffering,' as well as enjoying, together ; so that man 
is compelled to desire the welfare and virtue of his neighbours, even for 
his own sake, — a desire which, though it spring from selfishness, may 
be trained and purified into a spirit of disinterested love. From this ne- 
cessity of suffering for one another's faults, springs a capability of gene- 
rosity and heroism, which would never be called forth if literally every 
man must bear his own burden ; and a new power of winning over the 
sinner, hardened against every other impression, to repentance and a new 
life, by grateful admiration for the willing suffering that thus — in a small 
temporal sense, shadowing forth the religious one, — purchases his own 
salvation. And thus we have a glimpse of the mode of Divine working, 
bringing moral good out of moral evil, which would have been incon- 
ceivable to our faculties. But vicarious suffering, though it may be proved 
to produce these blessed fruits, is not according to J ustice, which requires 

* Butler's Analogy, Part n. ch. v. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



123 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OE THE WORLD.] 

considered idle to penetrate."* "It must not be supposed that each of the 
three periods had a separate and exclusive existence. On the contrary., 
they have always co-existed, but in the first the Theological, in the second 
the Metaphysical, in the third the Positive conception has predominated. 
The germ of Positivism will be found even in the Fetishistic period ; nor 
was man ever absolutely incapable of abstraction. On the other hand, the 
Positive period will not entirely exclude the initial and intermediate ten- 
dencies of the human mind."t " To prove that the theological stage is not 
thoroughly and universally passed, I need only refer to the monstrous illus- 
tration of our own days, when learned men, the Teachers of our people, 
gravely attributed the Cholera to God's anger at England's endowment of 
the Maynooth Colleges !"J 

XII. That the theological systems framed in an early age should pre- 
sent moral difficulties to believers of the present day, is a self-evident 
necessity. To call the mysteries of nature parallel difficulties is a perver- 
sion of analogy. We have a perfectly intelligible explanation of the former 
in their being the invention of men. How can we compare fiction with 
fact ? The assertions of revelation must be proved to be true before they can 
stand upon the same ground as what we know to be true. We infer, 
indeed, that the men who invented these fictions, and thought them worthy 
of being divine, had in their own minds immoral elements, which must 
have been derived from previous circumstances — from nature : but to make 
any analogy between the Author of nature, and the authors of the Bible 
stories, we must know that nature does represent God's ideal. We see 
every evidence to the contrary. Nature everywhere shows repugnance to 
the evil in itself ; is continually fighting against it, and striving to rise out 
of it and above it. Whence the evil came we do not attempt to explain, for 
we do not know, and we see no means of knowing. To call it the work of 
the Devil, serves as a convenient allegory, so long as we remember that it 
is nothing more. As we doubt or deny the Divine authorship of Bible im- 
moralities, so also indeed must we doubt or deny the Divine authorship of 
natural evil in the sense that an Almighty Good Being can will and take 
pleasure in evil. But at the same time we know that this divine work of 
Nature, unlike the Bible, is not completed ; that but a small page is open to 
us ; and that, neither if the whole were read out to us, might the mystery 
be at all revealed to our incompetent faculties. Still what appears to us 
evil we cannot call good. To different minds different degrees of Faith or of 
Infidelity will furnish a resting-place : but all degrees are well-based that 
are the unsophisticated deductions of each mind from real observation of 
Nature. If we are in earnest, what we have to do is not to make out our 
own theories, — not to make theories at all upon the subject, — but to find out 
what is the actual truth. 

* Comte's Positive Philosophy, by G. H. Lewes. Leader, April 24, 1852. See 
also Comte, Introduction, Chap. I. 

t Leader, May 8. Letter of correspondent "31." J Ibid, April 24. 



124 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 
that retribution should be dealt to every one according to his own works. 
This principle indeed cannot be said to be carried out strictly and uniformly 
in any part of the administration of the world. It is true, in a general 
sense, that sin always draws its punishment after it ; but it does not 
always fall upon the head of the sinner. It is not only that his innocent 
family and connexions must suffer with him, but sometimes he appears not 
to suffer himself at all, or not in proportion to his guilt. Worldly pros- 
perity is notoriously inconmiensurate with men's deserts. It is felt, 
indeed, as a general rule, that success awaits good conduct, — experience 
has established a prevailing confidence that the virtuous are more likely 
to get on well than the wicked ; but the rule has so many exceptions, 
and is liable to so many counteractions, unlooked-for and unaccountable, 
that no proverbial saying has been commoner in all ages than the caprice 
of fortune. And as honest labour aud industry do not ensure the acquisi- 
sition of wealth, nor prudence and worldly wisdom the retention of it ; 
so neither is fame, nor friendship, nor the attainment of learning, or of 
any of the good things of life, always adjusted according to merit ; so 
neither is virtue secure even of being its own reward, since bodily disease 
can produce morbid depression of mind, and prevent even the enjoyment 
of a good conscience, while vice is in its nature callous, and the deeper 
its dye is ordinarily the more insensible to the remorse that should be its 
punishment. — If it be said that the suffering consequent upon all kinds of 
transgression, wilful or not, which alights sometimes upon the doer, 
sometimes on others, is not to be regarded as punishment, but as a lesson 
and a warning : this may be advantageous on the whole, but not to the 
sufferer who obtains no benefit from it. That one man's mortal sickness — 
perhaps the result of his father's intemperance — should lead to the dis- 
covery of a remedy that will save the lives of those to come after him, 
is not justice ; that one man's folly or vice should teach others to avoid 
his example, is not justice ; in general, that one generation should reap 
the fruits of the labours of another, is not justice i — for though they in 
turn labour for the next, there is none of that proportioning to the exact 
share of each individual which is necessary to answer the demand of strict 
Justice. There is a rude sort of " things turning out right in the main, 
if one be set against another" ; but not the dealing with every single 
creature which man would expect from a J ust Creator. — It is proverbial 
amongst natural philosophers that " Nature cares for the Whole, not 
for individuals". Does this inspire a satisfactory feeling for a hapless unit 
out of that mass of mortality to regard the God of Nature with ? 

To the religious mind the claim of Justice from God is an impious 
one; the idea of human merit is abhorrent and absurd. Justice is a 
matter between man and man, and has nothing to do with his relation 
to his Maker, in whose hands he is merely as the clay on the potter's 
wheel, to be born in what nature and condition He may please, to live 
and act, to suffer and enjoy, merely according to His sovereign will and 
pleasure. With this idea as the basis of all his reasoning, the Christian 
finds no insurmountable stumbling-block in the inequalities to which men 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



125 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.] 

XIII. The result of the scientific observation of nature, is more and 
more to discover, that mind is as obedient to law as matter ; that the laws 
which govern mental phenomena, — or rather, the methods according to 
which we find that mental phenomena are developed, — are as strict and 
unvarying as the physical economy of the universe. The great moral law 
that virtue brings good consequences and vice evil, — which is but another 
formulary for expressing the very definition of virtue and vice, — acts as 
uninterruptedly and as irresistibly as the law of gravitation ; and if all the 
moral universe were in order, would doubtless act as perfectly for every 
individual as for the whole. But moral order is not accomplished ; although 
apparently tending to it as towards "God's ideal." There are a myriad 
conflicting impulses at work which mix and thwart one another at present. 
If adverse circumstances divert the course of retribution, and interfere 
with its legitimate sequences, a distortion of moral phenomena takes place. 
The law is not changed, cannot be changed ; but the reward or punishment 
falls on the wrong head. Events move on : the plane of individual action, 
which lay eccentric and unconformable, adjusts itself to parallelism with 
the general movement ; falls by degrees into its right place ; — by the friction 
of the mighty whirl of life, obstructions are worn down, and the 
amorphous conglomerations of mental atoms sphere themselves into har- 
monious combination. 

True, in this whirl individual interests seem uncared for. — But how 
shall we say so, when out of it there is evolving itself in our breasts this 
nice sense of Justice, which tells us what is due to ourselves, and by a 
farther, nobler stage, what is therefore due to every fellow-being 1 Here 
is God showing His will to do Justice to each one ; by this means where 
first He can, — if we must speak of Him in human language.* — In the 
heart of man He has made expression for this generous sentiment, which 
now first has means of uttering itself amidst this brute world. Man alone 
in the world is capable of the feeling of Justice ; and it is for Man to 
realize it. Let him see to it : it is his mission, his prerogative, to bring 
it about ; and if he fail he will have to perish, and God to make a better 
instrument ; for we see plainly that God has a will to have it done. By 
the indignation stirring in our breasts at the wrongs endured by our poor 

trampled brethren, he urges us to procure for them redress. Revenge, 

perhaps, by the same rule ? — No : for we have a better teaching, from our 
Godlike reason, that revenge will fail to effect its purpose. 

This, we think, is the true lesson of Nature ; and we may call it true 
piety. In this way, we recognize a genuine command of God. But in the 
anthropomorphic idea of God and Providence, taught by Christianity, we 
find a great hindrance to the real duty of man. By leading him to look for 
the personal care of God, as of a Being who out of his human emotion 

* [The sense in which the name of " God" is used, figuratively, on this side of 
the Argument, (except in some of the extracts by theistic writers,) will be seen 
in a later section.] 



126 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no gkound for belief in the 

are born. There is, besides, a sense in which he can truly say, as no others 
can, that all men are equal in the sight of God ; since the temporal differ- 
ences in their lot are nothing compared to the common boon of salvation 
that is offered to rich and poor alike by faith in Jesus Christ. In the 
light of this great proof of Divine love all petty difficulties vanish. And 
what if things go wrong in the lower world ? The trusting soul will find 
all made right in Eternity. 

XIY. The irregularity in the distribution of good and evil, 

To believe in an( ^ the deficiency of retribution in this life, have forced 
future compensa- upon almost all thinkers the conviction of the necessity 
tion because ne- for compensation in another world. " That which affords 
Goodness isfaise a sufficient answer to objections against the wisdom, 
ground. justice, and goodness of the constitution of Nature, is 

its being a scheme, imperfectly comprehended ; a scheme 
in which means are made use of to accomplish ends ; and which is carried 
on by general laws and which requires for its completion another world. 
The incompleteness of the scheme here, leads forward the expectation 
inevitably to a continuation beyond the grave. Belief in another life, 
and in a constantly superintending Providence, is what satisfies the mind 
at once. Calamities now are trials to improve the character, to increase 
faith, to wean the soul from attachment to earth, and will be abundantly 
compensated in the blessed hereafter. So strong and satisfactory is this 
conclusion, that many minds abandon themselves to it as one that their 
natural instincts tell them must be true. Supposing otherwise there be no 
proof of another world, this alone is felt sufficient to establish it : the 
belief in the goodness of God requires it, for it is impossible to conceive 
him dealing ill with his creatures. 

In this degree of faith many theists are contented to rest ; being gene- 
rally such as have known most of the bright side of life, and have not 
been forced by the sharpness of personal affliction to a keen sense of the 
difficulty of the question, to 'them appearing so easy of solution. To repose 
with tranquil confidence on the goodness of an All-wise Parent, which 
seems to them the rational fruit of the religion of Nature, is all, they 
think, that is required for man ; in this they feel themselves content, and 
pity the self-tormenting spirits that harass themselves with the vexatious 
burden of a faith that was framed to meet deeper requirements than they 
are aware of. Miserable is their security, must we exclaim, and baseless 
the ground on which they rest ! Delusive the confidence, which will fail 
them when the time of their utmost need comes upon them ! If the belief 
in the Goodness of God rest only upon what Nature can teach, it will 
prove itself weak and wavering, changing with the changing aspects under 
which things are viewed ; vanishing perhaps quite when sickness and fail- 
ing life cast their shade over the mind, — at that hour of gloom when the 
lamp of Faith is wont to burn the brightest ! 



* Butler's Analogy, Part n. cli. IV. p, 201. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



127 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OP THE WORLD.] 

would do all for man Himself, human effort to right the wronged is 
cramped and stunted ; since the best that man can do is thought to be to 
leave all to God. Here is a mighty obstruction at the heart of the matter 
that has to be cleared away : a false piety which, through necessary dis- 
appointment, is the fruitful source of blasphemy and impiety. 

And the poor injured individual,, who has no help from God, and as yet 
no help from his fellow-men, — what shall we say to him ? — If he has the 
blessing of a great soul within him, that can solace itself in noble sympathy 
with the good of the whole, — if too he can feel the benefit he himself shares 
in being subject to so grand a principle, an instrument in working it out, — ■ 
it is well with him. If not, the more our compassion for our poor brother ! 
Let us not beat about to satisfy our own minds with some comfortable 
imaginary alleviation, some conceited device of vindication for the ways of 
God 5 but confess with the sincerity due to our best feelings, and the sym- 
pathy due to the sufferers, that it is hard. In God's name let us strive that 
these things be so no more. 



XI Y. There is no presumption in believing ourselves thus the destined 
agents of God's J ustice, — or let us say simply, in following out the highest 
dictates of our own breast: — there may be presumption in saying,— limited 
creatures as we are, — that what we feel to be Justice God ought to carry out, 
must make another world in order that he may carry out. That is what we 
must leave to Him, in mystery, at least for the present : with resignation, if 
we are able. As far as we can see, the "scheme" of the world regards the 
Whole, and not individuals. Which if it is a hard creed, is very fruitless 
to debate ; and much more fruitless is it to murmur against it. We must 
make the best of what is : — perhaps capable of being made somewhat other- 
wise by our virtuous action, but certainly never by our unworthy lamenting. 
If in the weakness of our mind we sink into despondency and desolation, 
much more when the body grows weak, in dissolution, it is sad for us. Let 
us learn to care less for ourselves, and it will be less sad. There are some 
human spirits so beautiful that they are truly blessed in abstract contempla- 
tion of great and noble ideas. They take not much concern about them- 
selves while they know these to be progressing. Death is not spiritually 
painful to these : — it is the attachment to self, self in its lowest form of 
animal gratification, and the superstitious dread of the unknown which 
haunts uncultured minds, that makes the parting scene one of horror and 
dismay. 



128 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 
XV. For the truth must be fairly viewed, and the rejecter 

From nature of Christianity must answer for the consequences to which 
alone, God cannot his principles lead him. The Moral Perfection of God 
be proved to be j s a Christian doctrine. The belief in his unvarying 
Goodness is derived from the Bible ; and it is hence that 
it has been transferred by writers on Natural Theology to the domain of 
Nature, which would never of itself have given it birth. It is a truth 
that has been felt in secret by more than have dared, or have thought 
it advisable, to speak openly, that in nature the proofs of the goodness of 
God are so balanced by instances of an opposite kind, as to afford no 
certain ground for reposing confidence in it. 

It is objected against the sacred history of the Old Testament that the 
character of Jehovah as there depicted is cruel, relentless, savage : but the 
slaughter of the Canaanites, the hewing down of men, women and child- 
ren with the sword, and other cruelties commanded to the Israelites, are 
well matched by the pitiless destructive agencies of the God of Nature. 
See the wholesale sacrifice of life in the great physical convulsions — storms, 
conflagrations, earthquakes — where holocausts of living creatures are swal- 
lowed up by dead matter, like a huge, senseless idol. Consider the yet 
more fearful destruction involved in the law of animated life by which 
one species preys upon another, now accompanied with cruelty, increasing 
in every stage, till we come to man, the most cruel, who preys on all, the 
tyrant at the top of the scale. Consider the immense tribes of parasite 
animals, whose whole existence is framed upon the disease and torture of 
other creatures. Consider disease in general, which if it may be thought 
to have a moral purpose with regard to man, yet also torments with fruit- 
less sufferings all the irrational creation. Where does Nature show a 
tender regard for life, when amidst the lavish multitudes she pours forth 
into being, myriads perish in the first struggle, and at every stage of ex- 
istence, to be instantly replaced by myriads more ? — a manner of creation, 
as it were, in sport or mockery, and not confined to zoophytes and reptiles, 
to the lower animals, but continued to the highest that tenant the earth. 
Are the swarms of a pauper population apparently better cared for than the 
insect tribes ? — Religion alone, not nature, shows a Providence loving and 
watching over every immortal child of Adam. 

Would a man, with mere human benevolence, if he had the power to be 
a Creator, desire to bring forth beings destined to the horrors of a life of 
slavery, to the grinding oppression endured by the masses out of most 
nations, to the never-ending toil, the crushing burden of poverty that 
stifles heart and soul out of the multitudes even of our own countrymen ? 
Would he choose to bring into existence maimed, distorted, diseased 
creatures, and send them thus crippled to fight their way through a hard 
world, never interfering himself to smoothe their path, but leaving them 
to the mercy of that stern "order of things" in which the strong only can 
succeed, and the weak are ruthlessly trampled down, — the sooner and 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



129 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.] 

XV. As we find Justice in the workings of Nature only as a general 
principle as it were of moral equilibrium, which displays itself according to 
the human sentiment only when carried out by human agency : still more is 
Goodness, properly speaking, wanting, and is seen to be an idea applicable 
to it only by a figure of speech. The tendency of Nature is towards good ; 
most of all is it good by developing the power of goodness in man ; — all 
the successful, perfect operations of nature are productive of happiness ; 
harmony with nature is happiness ; and happiness helps nature on to that 
completer harmony which will make happiness nearer to perfection and 
universality : — 'but goodness, as the personal feeling that flows forth in 
voluntary kindness from the love of one being to another, has no existence 
save between man and man. Yet the figure by which we speak of the 
goodness of God, or of Nature, is so natural where there is any depth of 
feeling, that it must continue to be employed even after it has been recog- 
nized as merely the poetry of the heart. That which gives us so much joy 
we must call good ; for the sake of the joy, while our spirits are light, we 
must hide from ourselves the idea of pain, and say and persuade ourselves 
it is only good. The mind of humanity was thus exhilarated when 
Christianity beamed upon it as a thought from Heaven, that gave the 
blessed solution of that puzzle which had tormented it since it began 
to think. God, then, who showed himself in human form, was all good- 
ness, all love* Such, at least, is the perfect result into which Christianity 
has developed itself in the purest and best of its adherents. In the light 
of this idea of Divine love, all nature has worn its brightest aspect ; — 
so bright, that nature has been felt — truly felt — to afford after all stronger 
demonstration of the goodness of God than Christianity itself, — with all 
its hard points and dark corners that reason must beware of prying into. 
Thus Butler feels his most solid basis of argument in the established con- 
fidence that men in these Christian times have in the moral government 
and benevolent disposition of the Author of Nature. If this is not to 
be relied on, there is nothing in Christianity more sure, — nothing, as the 
tenour of his thoughts always implies, nothing so sure. 

With this bright and Christian mode of viewing things, — if defective 
by being partial, yet animating the mind to the discovery of good, — 
writers on natural theology have searched and found in rich abundance 
evidences of the sources of happiness that nature contains ; doubtless but 
a faint sample of what she will continue to unfold. 

" That evil has a use, and a benevolent one, cannot be doubted by 
him whose knowledge of our Creator has been gathered from the number- 
less instances of benevolent design throughout the universe, which, whilst 
they manifest the power of God, show us plainly the direction of that 
power towards the production of the greatest possible enjoyment. If, 
therefore, it can be demonstrated that pain is a necessary agent in the 
hand of God for the production of this balance of enjoyment ; that it is 
the only effectual guardian of that system of organization upon which our 



K 



130 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 



the more effectually perhaps the better ! Throughout all her dominion, it is 
the way of Nature to crush out the weak, to help and crown the strong. 
J ust the reverse is it with her from the divinely beautiful description of 
the Saviour, — "the smoking flax will he not quench, the bruised reed 
will he not break :" — the knowledge of such a Saviour is what our Father 
knew we had need of while subjected to the hardness of natural existence. 
The puny infant dies, the feeble in body or mind are jostled at every 
turn out of the enjoyment of the blessings of life ; the man of low 
character is disposed to fall lower and lower ; when disease oppresses 
the body, the powers of the mind decline also ; and with infirmities, 
amongst the lower-minded of mankind, as amongst all tribes of animals, 
come disgust and oppression on the part of fellow-beings. " To him that 
hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away 
even that which he hath." 

This pushing on of the Whole, in disregard of individuals, which 
characterises the mechanical, material world, — so opposite to the spiritual 
action of Love, — can, then, never, when really brought home to our con- 
sciousness, become the basis of a loving reliance upon the God of Nature. 
The knowledge of Him as a Guardian, Father, and Friend, the truly Just 
and Good, comes only from the proper attestation of his personal love, 
given in the gracious declaration of Himself and His blessed attributes in 
his revealed word. 



command to a being so constituted as man to perform them. — 

"I maintain that the one class of facts are just as 'inexplicable' as 
the other, and only appear otherwise because, in the one case, we daily 



1 



The permission 
of evil is as inex- 
plicable as the 
command of it. 



XVI. 



When the natural calamities to which men are liable, 
are adduced as parallel mysteries to the supernatural in- 
flictions recorded in Scripture, it is objected that no 
comparison ought to be made between such "sovereign 
acts of inexplicable will on the part of God, and his 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



131 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OP THE WORLD.] 

happiness depends ; that it is essential to our very existence ; will not the 
question in part be stripped of its mystery, and the ways of God to man be 
justified even to our finite comprehensions ? ... To check that utter subver- 
sion of order, and consequently of happiness, which the necessary ignorance 
of created intelligences would occasion, a something must be appointed which 
shall constantly act as a warning whenever these laws are transgressed. It 
is doubtful whether a monitor more effectual or better adapted for the pur- 
pose than Pain could possibly have been selected, so far as regards intelli- 
gence so limited as belongs to the inhabitants of this earth. . . But is it 
equitable that some sufferers should be made examples, . . that the rest of 
mankind might take warning from their fate ? The consistent Necessarian 
will not hesitate to answer in the affirmative : he will regard the parties 
merely as links in the chain of causation, as atoms of the great mass of 
sensation which it appears to be the object of the Deity to produce. So far 
from injustice being done to them, they were brought into the world and 
each made the vehicle of ten thousand more pleasurable sensations than 
painful ones, . and although their final sacrifice could not benefit them, yet 
during their life-time they were gainers by the same law that rendered their 
examples efficacious for the good of society. . . With reference to cases in 
which a man suffers for acting virtuously, where it has been represented 
that God is not just unless a future state be made to compensate the virtu- 
ous sufferer ; we think it may be shown that the happiness of a future state 
must be as gratuitous as the happiness here, and that no one is justified in 
claiming it of the Deity as the payment of a debt."* 

" When we perceive that the object and legitimate operation of every 
one of the natural laws, when observed, is to produce happiness to man ; 
and that the punishments have the sole object in view of forcing him back 
to this enjoyment, we cannot, under the supremacy of the moral sentiments 
and intellect, fail to bow in humility before them, as at once wise, just, and 
benevolent." " As the whole is an aggregate of all the parts, if any natural 
institution, when viewed in its operation in regard to the race, is found to 
be just and beneficent, it cannot well be cruel and unjust to individuals, 
who are the component parts of that whole."f 

" Physical pain in many aspects appears not as an accident and an abuse, 
but as if definitely designed. . Here it may suffice to remark, that the diffi- 
culty turns on the guasi-Epicurean assumption, that Physical Ease and 
Comfort is the most valuable thing in the universe : but that is not true, 
even with brutes. There is a certain perfection in the nature of each, con- 
sisting in the full development of all their powers, to which the existing 
Order manifestly tends ; and any one who shall speculatively reconstruct 
the organized world and logically follow out his own scheme, will probably 
end by discerning, that the present arrangements of God are better than 
man could have devised. As for susceptibility to Pain, it is obviously es- 
sential to every part of corporeal life, and to discuss the question of degree 

* Philosophy of Necessity, by Charles Bray. Vol. I. pp. 195, 196, 205, 206. 
f Constitution of Man, by George Combe. Henderson's Edition, pp. 361, 362. 
See the whole work. 



132 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 

see them, have become accustomed to them, and, what is more than all, 
cannot deny them, — which last we can so promptly do in the other case ; 
for Moses is not here to contradict us. But I rather think, that a being 
constituted morally and intellectually like us, who had never known any 
but a world of happiness, would just as promptly deny that God could 
ever perform such feats as are daily performed in this world ! I repeat, 
that if for some reasons (< inexplicable,' I grant you) God does not mind 
doing such things, he is not likely to hesitate to enjoin them ; for reasons 
perhaps equally inexplicable. I say perhaps ; for, as I compare such an 
event as the earthquake in Lisbon, or the plague in London, with the 
extermination of the Canaanites, I solemnly assure you that I find a 
greater difficulty, as far as my ( intuitions' go, in supposing the former 
event to have been effected by a divine agency than the latter. If we take 
the Scripture history, we must at least allow, that the race thus doomed 
had long tried the patience of heaven by their flagrant impiety and un- 
natural vices ; that they had become a centre and a source (as we some- 
times see collections of men to be) of moral pestilence, in the vicinage of 
which it was unsafe for men to dwell ; that, as the Scriptures say, they 
had 'filled up the measure of their iniquities.' The whole proceeding is 
represented as a solemn judicial one ; and it seems to me much less difficult 
to suppose them to harmonize with the character of a just and even 
beneficent being than those wholesale butcheries which have desolated the 
world, in every hour of its long history, without any discrimination what- 
ever of innocence or guilt ; which, if they have inflicted unspeakable 
miseries on the immediate victims, have produced probably as much or 
more in the agony of the myriad myriads of hearts which have bled or 
broken in unavailing sorrow over the sufferings they could not relieve. . 
If God does not mind doing such things, why are we to suppose that he 
minds on some occasions ordering them to be done ; unless we suppose 
that man has more refined intuitions of right and wrong, and knows 
better what they are than God himself ? ... It is plain that, in accordance 
with our primitive 6 moral' intuitions', we should hold him who had the 
power to prevent a wrong and did not use it, as a participator and accom- 
plice in the crime he did not prevent. Applying, therefore, the principles 
of Mr. Newman, I must refuse to acknowledge such conduct on the part 
of the Divine Being, and say, that such things are not done by him. If 
I may trust my whisper of him, derived from analogous moral qualities 
in myself, I must believe that an administration which so ruthlessly per- 
mits these things, is not his work ; but that his power, wisdom, and 
goodness have been thwarted, baffled, and over mastered by some 
1 omnipotent devil', to use Mr. Newman's expression ; if it be, then that 
whisper of him cannot be trusted : the heathen was right, ' Sunt superis 
sua jura\ In other words, I feel that I must become an Atheist, a 
Pantheist, a Manichsean, or — a sceptic. All these perplexities are increased 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



133 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OP THE WORLD.] 

is absurd. On the other hand, Human capacity for Sorrow is equally ne- 
cessary to our whole moral nature, and Sorrow itself is a most essential 
process for the perfecting of the soul."* 

" The question is whether the present condition contains any absolute, 
or any needless partial evil. Pain is incidental to the development of a 
finite being with even a small amount of freedom. But as man is more 
free, and individually and generically progressive, a larger am nt of pain is 
incidental to his existence." " I do not pretend that I can clear up all the 
difficulties in this matter by the inductive mode — of studying the details, 
and thereby learning their law and showing how each particular form of 
evil turns into good ; — I shall be obliged to refer to the idea of God as 
Infinite, and from that deduce the value of the function of the special 
forms of pain and misery. The wisest man is only a child as yet. 
Philosophy has read but a few pages of this great book of Nature, whereof 
all must be known fully to understand a part. When I know there is an 
Infinite God, I am sure that his purpose is good and his means adequate ; 
I spontaneously trust therein. . In the present condition of science, it is not 
hard to learn the general tendency of things in Nature, and thence get the 
analogy of the whole to help explain particular parts. But no man, I 
think, as yet has been able to explain all these cases by the purely inductive 
process, "t 



XVI. In the first, or ' 'theological" stage of thought, when it is the 
tendency of men to ascribe all events to Deities of human passions, the 
rude notion of justice, more in its beginning like revenge, leads to the 
supposition that physical calamities are judicial inflictions. In this light 
they are represented in the Old Testament narratives : and this is certainly 
a degree better than regarding them as the result of wanton cruelty or 
wilful neglect ; but scarcely better than supposing them permitted for the 
sake of greater good than could otherwise be obtained ; — as it is manifestly 
a more barbarous idea that God should rain down fire himself to destroy a 
guilty city, than that he should suffer pestilence to wait on the violation of 
cleanliness, or even on innocent poverty, in obedience to pre-ordained laws 
the recognition of which in their constant inevitable operation is to benefit 
all future time. Still, that a benevolent Being, according to the common 
view of Deity, should "not mind" doing such things, even with such a 
purpose, is doubtless contrary to all our conceptions. If we suppose that 
God has human feelings of love and compassion, we must suppose that this 
conflict with evil gives him pain, — as it is said consistently, that men by sin 
can "grieve the Spirit of the Most High." Into such gratuitous per- 
plexities are we led by suppositions ! If, however, we must read nature in 
this figurative style, her true lesson is after all, that, in some sense, God 
does mind, — minds as the very essence of his being, — and is perpetually and 
everywhere striving against destruction, and misery, and sin; especially 
through his prime agent, man, the best " interpreter of nature." By man's 

* The Soul, by F. W. Newman. 3d Ed. p. 31. 

+ Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, by Th. Parker. Chapman's Quarterly 
Series. No. I. 1853, pp. 204, 192. J 



134 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 

when I trace them up to that profound mystery in which they all originate, 
— I mean the permission of physical and moral evil. Either evil could have 
been prevented or not ; if it could, its immense and horrible prevalence 
is at war with the intuition already referred to ; if it could not, who shall 
prove it ? I am no more able to contradict the intuitions of the intellect 
than those of the conscience ; and if anything can be called a contradic- 
tion of the former, it is to be told that a Being of infinite power, wisdom, 
and beneficence could not construct a world without an immensity of evil 
in it ; no reason being assignable or even imaginable for such a proposition, 
except the fact that such a world has not been created ! I am therefore 
compelled to doubt, whether such a universe be really the fabrication of 
such a Being."* 



XVII. "But the Bible does at least give me a plausible 

The doctrine of account of some of the mysteries which bafiie me : it 
the "Fail" is the tells me that man was created holy and happy ; that he 
best clue to the f a ]j en f rom j^g t excellent estate' ; and hence the 

mystery. m ' 

misery, ignorance, and guilt, in which he is involved, 

and which have rendered revelation necessary. . . The Scripture account of 
the ' fall' — however inexplicable it may be that God should have per- 
mitted it — yet does expressly assert that, somehow or other, it is man's 
fault, not God's ; that man is not in his normal condition, nor in the 
condition for which he was created. Dark as are the clouds which 
envelope the Divine Ruler, ' their skirts are tinged with gold,' — pervaded 
and penetrated throughout- their dusky depths by that Mercy which 
assures us that, in some intelligible sense, this condition of man is con- 
trary to the Divine Will, which, from the first, resolved to remedy it ; 
and that a day is coming when what is mysterious shall be explained — 
so far, at least, that what has been ' wrong' shall be 'righted'. But what 
is the theory of the universe propounded by these writerst/ That man 
is now just what he was at first — as he came from his Creator's hand ; or 
rather in some parts of the world (thanks to himself though) a little better 
than he was originally . . that for unnumbered ages, — for aught we know 
myriads of ages — he has been slowly crawling up, a very sloth in 1 progress', 

* Eclipse of Faith, pp. 150-154. [These words are put into the mouth of a Sceptic, 
but evidently represent the course of argument which the Author thinks may be 
rightly turned bv the Christian against the " Spiritualist", or any unbeliever also a 
Theist.] 

+ [Mr. Parker and Mr. Newman are here alluded to.] 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



135 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OP THE WORLD.] 

activity and skill does Nature overcome physical disorders ; by man's 
superior wisdom and beneficence does she subdue brutish violence and 
debasing sins. If any ambitious self-deceiver thinks that by becoming a 
greater brute himself and swallowing up the less, he shall be serving God 
and doing him pleasure, as the Israelites thought of old, nature shows 
him, or shows the world presently, that he is quite mider a false notion. 
Impatient, passion-governed men are but beginning to understand the error ; 
but nature will make it plain in the end. She never applauds, never 
sanctions, never commands wrong doing. It always turns out to be the 
foolish, mistaken thing. If it were true that God commanded pillage and 
slaughter, and was pleased with those who obeyed him, it would be 
analogous to nothing in nature ; it would stand as an unique, unparalleled 
instance of supernatural immorality. What God really commands, and is 
trying to get accomplished, is to be found, the most of it yet revealed, in 
the hearts of the best men. There is no analogy between this really Divine 
teaching, and what the old savage Hebrews thought to be Divine.* 

But we shall never cease from blundering while we take as the starting- 
point of our reasoning on these matters, that which we are farthest of all 
from understanding, — while we are debating what is proper for God to do, 
instead of observing what He has done ; — scanning the motives of Deity, 
instead of attending to his deeds, and learning the lesson they convey ; 
— straining to vindicate the character of God, instead of making good our 
own part ! What God is, it seems that man can never know ; — with all 
our thinking we shall never make Him other than ourselves, which is sure 
to mislead us : — what He will have us to be, what He will have each one 
practically to do, is sufficiently intelligible. 

Thus much, however, is clear for our satisfaction : whatever be the na- 
ture of the Government of the World, within the certain knowledge of man 
the World has made a great and steady advance on the road of improvement. 

XVII. What was the " origin of evil" we may also be well content to 
leave as a mystery ; a matter of curious speculation which does not practi- 
cally concern us. What we have to do is to contend with the Evil., to put 
an end to as much of it as we can ; and it is our encouragement, that all 
science and human history show us that man has so contended with some 
degree of success hitherto, and may continue to contend with increasing 
means, and prospect of much greater success. 

"The theologians who condemned the natural world, lived in an age 
when there was no sound philosophy, and almost no knowledge of physical 
science; they were unavoidably ignorant of the elementary qualities of 
human nature, . . unacquainted with the relations subsisting between the 

* It is strange that the supporters of Revelation should insist upon its analogy 
with nature, when the essential idea of it is, that it is designed expressly to counter- 
act Nature because nature is all wrong, is not going the way God intended, Keve- 
lation is supposed to be given to set it right. Is this to be done by confirming and 
sanctioning the very immorality it was meant to cure, as if upon the principle 
similia similibus curantur ? 



136 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in the 

from the lowest Feticbism to Polytheism — from Polytheism, in all its 
infinitude of degrading forms, to imperfect forms of Monotheism — to make 
' progress' to something else — heaven knows what ! but certainly something 
still far below the horizon — still concealed in the illimitable future. . . 
According to this theory, the Great Father — supposed a being of infinite 
power, wisdom, and goodness — threw his miserable offspring on the face 
of the earth, with the elements of his nature originally so ill-poised and 
compounded, that everywhere and for unnumbered ages man has been, 
and for unnumbered ages ivill be doomed and necessitated to wallow in 
the most hideous, degrading, cruel forms of superstition, — inflicting and 
suffering reciprocally all the dreadful evils and wrongs which are entailed 
by them. For this, man was created ; such a thing he was by original 
destination. If this be the picture of the Father of All, he is less kind 
to his offspring than the most intimate i intuitions' teach them to be to 
theirs. The voice of nature teaches them not to expose their children ; 
the universal Father, according to this theory, remorselessly exposed his ! 
If I am to abjure the Bible because it gives me unworthy conceptions of 
the Deity, I must, with more reason, abjure, on similar grounds, such 
a detestable theory of man's creation, destination, and history."* 

"Many persons represent as peculiar to the Gospel revelation, that 
which really does lie within the reach of natural reason. A familiar in- 
stance of this last is the doctrine of the corrupt nature of Man ; which 
some represent as a truth resting on revelation, and claiming to be acknow- 
ledged as an article of faith not discoverable by reason : whereas, daily 
experience sufficiently proves it ; and though there are still, and ever will be, 
some who will not learn from experience, men of sense, in all ages, seem 
to have fallen little, if at all, short of the truth, in that point. The 
history, indeed, of the fall of Man is revealed in Scripture ; but the 
actual condition of Man, though often adverted to, can hardly be said to 
be revealed ; any more than the truths, that the sun shines by day and the 
moon by night. The origin of evil, again, not a few are apt to speak of, 
as explained and accounted for, at least in great part, by the Scripture 
accounts of sin "entering into the world, and death by sin ;" whereas the 
Scriptures leave us, with respect to the difficulty in question, just where 
they find us, and are manifestly not designed to remove it. He who pro- 
fesses to account for the existence of evil, by merely tracing it up to the 
first evil recorded as occurring, would have no reason to deride the 
absurdity of an atheist, who should profess to account for the origin of 
the human race, without having recourse to a Creator, by simply tracing 
them up to the first pair."f 



* Eclipse of Faith, pp. 159-162. 

f Whately's Essays. Introduction, p. 19. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



137 



MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.] 

mind and external nature, and could not by possibility divine to what extent 
individuals and society were capable of being improved by natural means. 
In the history of man, they had read chiefly of misery and crime, and had 
in their own age beheld much of both. They were, therefore, naturally led 
to form a low estimate of human nature, and to expect little good from 
the cultivation of its inherent capabilities."* 

" Unlike an over-fond parent, who fears lest her charge should receive 
the slightest hurt, Nature gives mankind a rough education, and allows 
them unscrupulously to receive many before they attain their majority. 
Man's infancy of six thousand years has abounded with disasters ; yet 
Nature has looked on unmoved, tranquilly confident in the ultimate success 
of her plan ; in evidence of which we see she now points to her charge, 
upon the whole healthy and vigorous, notwithstanding his past troubles, 
rendered partially wise and reflective in consequence of them, and shewing 
a strength of constitution in body and mind which allows the hope of a 
manhood of perfection. "f 

" The real commencement of human history is, in fact, much humbler 
than is commonly supposed, Man having everywhere begun by being a 
fetish-worshipper and a cannibal. Instead of indulging our horror and dis- 
gust of such a state of things by denying it, we should admit a collective 
pride in that human progressiveness which has brought us into our present 
state of comparative exaltation, while a being less nobly endowed than Man 
would have vegetated to this hour in his original wretched condition. "J 

" From the beginning of human history there has been a progressive 
development of all the higher faculties of man ; of the religious faculties, 
which connect man with God, as well as of the other faculties, which 
connect man with the material universe, and men with one another. There 
has been a progress in Piety, in Morality, and in the Theories of these two. 
Of course, then, there has been a progress in the visible results of this 
development of the religious faculties. The progress appears in the rise, 
decline, and disappearance of various forms of religion. Each of these has 
been necessary to the welfare of the human race ; for at one time it repre- 
sented the highest development of the persons who embraced that form of 
religion. As the science of a nation represents its intellectual development, 
so the form of religion shows how far men have got on in their piety and 
morality. But as each form of religion, when it is once established, is a 
thing which is fixed and does not change, and as the religious faculties are 
not fixed, but go on with increasing power from age to age, so it happens 
that men must necessarily outgrow any specific and imperfect form of 
religion whatever, just as they outgrow each specific and imperfect form of 
science. Human nature continually transcends the fact of human history ; 
so new schemes of science, new forms of religion, continually crowd off 
the old."§ 



* Combe's Constitution of Man, p. 17. + Christian Theism, p. 68. 

X Comte's Positive Philosophy, Yol. II. p. 186. 

§ Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 51. 



138 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH 

LEAVES NO SUFFICENT GROUND FOR BE- 

According, then, to the last section, " if this world be 
all, the divine administration in many points is more 
hopelessly opposed to our moral instincts and to all our 
notions of equity and benevolence, than any thing on 
which ' spiritualists' are accustomed to justify their cen- 
sure of Scripture."* This is the strongest argument 
which natural religion can furnish for another life ; but where is the basis 
on which it can rest, when, as has been shown, the evidences of Divine 
goodness are wanting, — when the marks of Divine interest in the indi- 
vidual welfare of men, which only would warrant the expectation, are not 
to be found in nature ? The personal love and providential care of the 
gracious Father who wills not that "one of his little ones should perish," 
is attested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone. And it is only by the 
spirit of this Gospel, as already urged, that natural theologians, Butler and 
a hundred others, both Christians and unbelievers, use language like the 
following: — " As our present condition can in no wise be shown incon- 
sistent with the perfect moral government of God : so Religion teaches us 
we were placed in it, that we might qualify ourselves, by the practice of 
virtue, for another state which is to follow it. . The known end why we are 
placed in a state of so much affliction, hazard, and difficulty, is, our im- 
provement in virtue and piety, as the requisite qualification for a future 
state of security and happiness, "t By Religion, and Christian religion 
alone, is this end really known by us. When we see processes of improve- 
ment going on, suddenly cut short by death, making fruitless the efforts 
that carry on the mind inevitably to expect future fulfilment, we have 
no reason in Nature for not classing this with other abortive attempts, 
failures, which are never repaired, but left to die out, while instantly 
replaced by beginning over again on a new stock. We have no reason 
in Nature to suppose that God cares more for the untimely end of a good 
man, than for the happy young animals devoured by a beast of prey, or 
for the luxuriant foliage snapped by the storm. It is nothing that in 
our eyes the man is a so much nobler creature, — nature can make 
plenty more ! 



XVIII. 

There is not 
ground for sup- 
posing the present 
a scene of pro- 
bation. 



Eclipse of Faith, p. 391. f Butler's Analogy. Part I. ch. v. p. 113. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



139 



CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 

LIEVING IN THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN. 

XVIII. Progress, indeed, is for the race ; improvement, in the view 
of Nature, is for the whole, and for individuals only as parts of the whole. 
They have the benefit of the good that belongs to all, and they must each 
contribute their mite of good to the general stock. According to the 
immortal aphorism of Pascal,* "the entire succession of men, through 
the whole course of ages, must be regarded as one man, always living and 
incessantly learning." The perfection of human nature can only be attained, 
when the individuality of its component parts being completed, it is again 
merged in the indissoluble union of society. " We cannot fully appreciate 
a phenomenon which is for ever proceeding before our eyes, and in which 
we bear a part ; but if we withdraw ourselves in thought from the social 
system, and contemplate it as from afar, can we conceive of a more marvel- 
lous spectacle, in the whole range of natural phenomena, than the regular 
and constant convergence of an innumerable multitude of human beings, 
each possessing a distinct, and, in a certain degree, independent existence, 
and yet incessantly disposed, amidst all their discordance of talent and 
character, to concur in many ways in the same general development, with- 
out concert, and even consciousness on the part of most of them, who 
believe that they are merely following their personal impulses 1 This is the 
scientific picture of the phenomenon : and no temporary disturbances can 
prevent its being, under all circumstances, essentially true."t Under such 
an enlarged view as this, man loses his selfishness, becomes less irritable, 
restless, and suffering. But the Christian religion keeps attention centered 
within self. J To " practise virtue in order to qualify ourselves for heaven," 
is a selfish calculation which all the analogy of nature shows as likely to 
end in disappointment. When do we do good hoping for reward here, that 
the reward comes in the form we expect it ? What parent, training his 
child for an ideal career in his own mind, as we would train our souls, ever 
finds his visionary anticipations realized 1 The education going on here is 
to fortify our minds to act bravely on principles established by the wise 
consent of mankind, which, surely as they are right and true, bring their 
own reward with them. Does any one need a bribe to eat when he is 
hungry ? Impediments may indeed occur to prevent the enjoyment even of 
this natural reward ; but these should only stimulate men to remove them, 
and their proper use is to serve as a discipline to strengthen the mind to do 
without it. If the reward we are accustomed to receive and reasonably 
expect for good actions, be only deferred to the future, then to be paid with 
incalculable interest, the discipline is lost, and the whole lesson of nature is 
perverted. So even in the extreme lesson of human disappointment, — in 
the loss of dear friends, — perhaps the good that should result from the 

* Quoted in Positive Philosophy, Vol. II. p. 54. f Ibid, Vol. II. p. 140. 

% Christianity is said to be a system of self-abnegation, because it merges our own 
Will in the Will of God ; but this is a mere shifting of words, when the Will of God 
is declared to be our personal salvation. 



140 



OBJECTIONS OF CHKISTIANITY. 



[no gkound foe belief in 

XIX. It is only as an hypothesis to meet the above diflS.- 
As an expiana- culties, that the belief in another life can be held by 

tory hypothesis, natural reason : but it is too far from really removing 
a future life is those difficulties, to maintain itself on that ground. 

not satisfactory 7 , 0 

enough to main- ' ' The argument which proceeds on the disorder and 

tain itself. irregularity apparent in the present world, and the ne- 

cessity of a future state of retribution, to vindicate the divine justice, 
would be indeed most satisfactory, if it involved a solution of the great 
and perplexing question (intimately connected with it) respecting the origin 
of Evil ; but though it may seem to remove the difficulty one step further 
off, it does not in any degree explain or lessen it ; the expectation that at 
the day of harvest the tares shall be rooted up and burnt, does not at all 
explain wby they were allowed to be sown among the wheat. That there 
are wicked men, experience teaches us ; and that they shall be punished, 
the Scriptures teach us; nor is there any ground for cavilling at this 
doctrine, since it involves no greater difficulty than the other, which we 
cannot but admit ; but it does not explain the fact ; nor are we therefore 
authorized to infer, & priori, independent of Revelation, a future state 
of retribution, from the irregularities prevailing in the present life ; since 
that future state does not account fully for those irregularities. It may 
explain indeed how present evil may be conducive to future good ; but 
not, why the good could not be attained without the evil : it may reconcile 
with our notions of the divine justice, the present prosperity of the wicked j 
but it does not account for the existence of the wicked."* 

XX. There is scarcely any one at the present day who will 
There is no attach weight to the evidence in the material world for 

proof of immor- human immortality. Nature, to the eye of science, offers 
taiity m the ma- nQ ana j 0 ory or remotest sign of life renewed after death. 

tenal ^orld, or OJ ' ° 

in natural human Such fanciful symbols as that of the butterfly typifying 
experience. the soul, emerging to a heavenly existence from its mortal 

prison-house, the beautiful Psyche of Grecian imagination, show merely 
how poetry strives to fulfil the longings of poor human nature, where there 
is no real provision for their gratification. From all that our senses tell 
us, from all that we see and know, the individual creature perishes, while 
only the race survives. The component atoms of the body are scattered 
in dissolution, to be re-compounded in other forms : and what does nature 
tell us of the soul apart from the body ? — Surviving friends see the beloved 
departed in dreams, — nay, behold them in waking visions ; the mighty 
power of affection melts the hardest Infidel, and he that would not accept 
the testimony of the Holy Spirit if it contradicted his reason, yields him- 
self — all the more ! — credulous to the grossest superstition ! His nature 
demands communication with the unseen world, and having denied the 
true, he must needs betake himself to the false. But inexorable Science 
drives him from his unlawful resources ; tries the spirits, and confesses 
that none can re-appear on earth save by the express permission of Him 



* Whately's Essay on the Revelation of a future state, pp. 68-70. 



ANSWERS CE INFIDELITY. 



HI 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

heart's agony, is frustrated by the attempts at consolation, — generally resisted 
by nature, — in the promise of meeting again. " Man is born to sorrow," 
and must bear his pain in a manly way, without self-deceit and flattery. 

But Nature, truly looked upon, is not unsympathetic to his woes : when 
that which is precious is cut off, no mourner is alone in his grief. Nature, 
the God of Nature, gives him support and solace in the pity and love of his 
fellow-men. How can Nature be called unfeeling, when this tenderness in 
human breasts is her most bountiful and most beautiful production ? 

XIX. The following considerations confirm the insufficiency of the 
hypothesis : — 

" Since we can only judge of the attributes of God by what we see and 
know of His works, are we not bound to admit, that if He cannot be proved 
to be just with respect to this world, there is no evidence that He will be 
so in another ? Admitting, however, that justice is proved to be the ac- 
tuating principle of the Deity, . . who, upon the plea of justice, must become 
the inhabitants of heaven ? The wicked, not the good. For . . the wicked 
man has already suffered from a great deficiency of happiness in the present 
state ; and such having been the lot assigned to him here, ought he still to 
be among the most unhappy in another world ? This question is answered 
by many in the affirmative, on the ground that punishment in another state 
will have the same benevolent object that it has here, viz., reformation ; 
and that by its means, evil-doers will be fitted for the enjoyment of eternal 
bliss, to which the preparatory suffering will bear no comparison. But it 
must be of long duration . . . and if we may, without irreverence, employ 
reason upon such a subject, the painful process would appear to be perfectly 
gratuitous ; as, in the re-organization of a being for a future state, the 
leaving out of the causes that led to vice would seem to be the most direct 
means of amendment. Such causes we have seen to be dependent upon the 
organization of the individual, and the circumstances in which he is placed. 
The propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties of which the mind 
consists, are, so far as respects the majority of them, adapted only to a 
world like the present ; and if a future state is to be unlike the present, 
they also must undergo a corresponding alteration. . . Many of our mental 
faculties will have no use . . the knowledge acquired on earth will be un- 
availing. Why then must a long probation in a future state be necessary ? 
Why, in the re-organization that must take place, could not the mind be 
divested of those qualities that have led to vice here, without the aid of 
suffering ? Or might we not even ask, why would not the creation of - 
another more perfect being answer the benevolent design of the Creator, as 
well as the re-organization of the same ?"* 

Still, however unable we may be to form a perfect hypothesis upon the 
subject, there is no reason which can compel us so to do violence to our in- 
stinctive notions of justice, as to deny the possibility that the scheme of 
retribution, manifestly at present incomplete to our apprehension, may in 
fact be accomplishing their fulfilment, and in time so evolve itself as to make 
apparent the equitable adjustment of individual as well as general good. 

* Philosophy of Necessity, Vol. I. pp. 235-7. 



142 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

who has them all in His keeping. Except those specially ordained and 
proclaimed as miraculous, no instance of supposed communication with 
the world of spirits has ever yet stood a really critical and scientific 
examination.* 

XXI. The proof of immortality does not depend upon the 

Nor in the na- question of the materiality or immateriality of the soul ; 
ture of the Soul. since we have no means of knowing that an immaterial 
substance could preserve a conscious identity when separated from the 
body ; neither can we say that it is impossible for a material substance to 
be endued with immortality. As Locke has argued, t it is not to be de- 
nied that God can impart such an attribute to matter if it please him ; but 
that he has done so, certainly, we have no means of knowing — except 
that he has told us. 

"It is not unlikely, that in thus depreciating the power of unassisted 
reason to ascertain the truth of a future life, I shall be suspected of 
favouring some opinions against which much clamour has been raised, 
viz : that the Soul is naturally mortal — incapable of an existence con- 
tinued after our dissolution, except from the express decree of the Creator ; 
and that it is a Material Substance, or an Attribute of Matter. It 
were to be wished that those who have agitated these questions (and 
indeed many others) had begun by distinctly ascertaining what they were 
disputing about : which neither of the parties appear to have attended to. 
For my own part, I must frankly acknowledge, that I do not understand 
the questions. If by £ nature' is meant the course in which the Author 
and Governor of all things proceeds in his works, (which is the only mean- 
ing I am able to attach to it,) then, to say that the souls of men, if God has 
appointed that they shall exist for ever, are naturally immortal, is not only 
an undeniable, but an identical proposition : it is only saying that the ap- 
pointments of Omnipotence will surely take effect. If on the other hand, 
when it is said that the Soul is naturally mortal, nothing more is meant than 
that its existence is maintained after death solely by the agency of divine 
power ; this also I should be disposed not only fully to admit, but to extend 
to our present existence also ; ' for in God we live, and move, and have our 
being :' I cannot myself conceive what are called physical causes to possess 
power, in the strict sense of the word ; or to be capable of maintaining, 
more than of first producing, the system of the universe ; whose continued 
existence, no less than its origin, seems to me to to depend on the continual 

* [This, of course, is matter of individual judgment: the opinion is expressed 
here, because it is conceived to be the most strictly in harmony with the belief in 
Revelation as a dispensation of special miracle. Some Christians, indeed, have 
eagerly accepted the pretended spiritual manifestations as confirmatory of the 
Scripture miracles ; but it is believed they must soon see that their zeal has hurried 
them into a mistake that endangers their cause.] 

*r Locke on the Human Understanding. Book rv. ch. III. sec. 6. See his first 
Letter to the Bishop of Worcester. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



143 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

XX. It is probably true, that experience has yet furnished no indi- 
cation of the possibility of conscious identity continued after apparent 
dissolution ; but still it would be rash to conclude that therefore such can 
never be discovered. 



XXI. The reasoning opposite sets the question on a firm footing : it 
is futile to debate upon causes and the real nature of things, either (so- 
called) material or spiritual, since we are unable to comprehend them. We 
have only to observe the tendency of the operations going on around and 
within us ; and hitherto the insight we have obtained by this means into 
the constitution of Mind, or Soul, does not permit us to do more than 
speculate concerning its destination. 

Mr. Parker, who believes in a future life on the ground that it is neces- 
sary in order to make intelligible the benevolent purpose of Deity, consist- 
ently extends the belief to the immortality of the lower animals. " I do not 
see how this benevolent purpose can be accomplished unless all animals are 
immortal and find retribution in another life. . The ultimate welfare must 
come to the mutilated beast overtasked by some brutal man. If it be not 
so, then the universe is not a perfect world ; it is imperfect in this particu- 
lar, that it does not serve the natural purpose of these creatures, who go 
incomplete and suffering. . I know many will think it foolish, and some im- 
pious, to speak of the immortality of animals . But without this supposition 
I cannot * vindicate the ways of God ' to the horse and the ox. To me the 
immortality of all animals appears in harmony with the analogy of Nature, 
rational, benevolent, and beautiful. The argument from consciousness is 
here out of place — as man knows nothing of the consciousness of the sheep 
and swine. There are but two arguments which I have ever heard brought 
against the immortality of animals — one is drawn from the selfishness of 
man, who wants a monopoly of all desirable things, and so would shut 
beast and bird out of heaven ; the other comes from the common notion of 
the Deity, that He is a mean and stingy God, making heaven little and hell 
large. Let both pass for what they are worth."* 



* Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 198. 



144 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

operation of the great Creator. The Laws of Nature, as they are called, 
presuppose (as Dr. Paley remarks) an Agent ; since they are ' the modes in 
which that Agent operates ;' they cannot be the cause of their own observ- 
ance. . . The question, again, respecting the Materiality of the soul, is one 
which I am also at a loss to understand clearly, till it shall have been 
clearly determined what matter is. We know nothing of it, any more than 
of Mind, except its Attributes ; and (let it not be forgotten) the most 
remarkable of these are not ascertained. Whether Gravitation be an essen- 
tial quality of matter is still a question, and likely to remain so, among 
natural philosophers ; who accordingly are divided in opinion whether those 
commonly called imponderable Substances, Heat, Light, and Electricity, 
are Substances at all, or not. At any rate, let not the truths of Religion 
be rested on any decision respecting subtle questions which belong to the 
Natural-philosopher or Metaphysician, not the Theologian ; nor let our 
hopes in God's promises be mixed up with debates about Extension, and 
Gravitation, and Form. The Scriptures in these points leave us just where 
they found us ; giving no explanation of the nature of the Soul, but giv- 
ing us instead, what is far more important, an assurance that we are 
destined to live for ever. That this is impossible, and that no revelation 
is to be received, how r ever attested, which contains this doctrine, we may 
be assured no metaphysical arguments will ever prove ; and it is, on the 
other hand, I think, equally out of the power of metapl^sical arguments 
to prove the contrary ; — to establish, without the aid of divine revelation, 
the certainty of a future immortality : for if otherwise, whence is it that 
the wisest of men, when fairly left to themselves, never did arrive at the 
conclusion, by any arguments which were satisfactory even to themselves ? 
For it should not be forgotten, among other considerations, that none of 
those who contend for the natural immortality of the Soul, on the ground 
of its distinct nature from the Bod} T , — its incapability of decomposition, 
&c. have been able to extricate themselves from one difficulty, viz. : that 
all their arguments apply, with exactly the same force, to prove an im- 
mortality not only of brutes, but even of plants ; though in such a con- 
clusion as this, they were never willing to acquiesce."* 

XXII. The hopes and expectations of men relative to a future 

Men's instincts life form indeed a natural argument in its favour, but 
are too various one which perhaps has been very much over-stated, if not 
to establish it. misrepresented. It is not to be assumed as undoubted 
that this desire was not originally specially imparted in a supernatural 
manner : in which case the whole system of the Infidel is false. Butler 
says,f "there is express historical or traditional evidence as ancient as 
history, of the system of Religion being taught mankind by revelation. . 
And whoever will consider how unapt for speculation rude and unculti- 
* Whately's Essays, pp. 63-67. 

+ Analogy, Part i. ch. vi. pp. 145, 144. See Locke°s Reasonableness of Christi- 
anity. Ed. 1810. p. 218. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



145 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

XXII. The following are specimens of the different feelings with which 
this doctrine is regarded by Theistic writers : 

"Fear not, then, to regard this earth as the appointed sphere of man's 
chief thoughts, exertions, and interests. To enjoy and promote happiness 
on this planet is the simple and pleasing obligation laid upon him by the 
Creator through the irresistible voice of his own constitution. If he obey 
nature, and frame his whole conduct according to her easy command, de- 
veloped in details as enlightened intellect may suggest, he is sure to be 
promoting the end of his being. . Indulge thyself especially, as far as it is 
given thee, in the enjoyment which God himself seems to delight in, of 
creating happiness. And when the foreseen signal of departure arrives, give 
a glance of contented retrospection on a well-spent and well-enjoyed life, 
welcome the new comers into thy place, and sink peacefully into nature's 
arms. — More is there than this ? Nature is silent. Enough has she given 
man to occupy him on earth : she withdraws not yet the veil from what lies 
beyond, but bids him wait in calm implicit faith. Or if, pressed urgently 
by the affections which she herself has implanted in him, man seems to 
acquire a right to some answer, and demands if the friend of many years is 
now really no more than a remembrance, — she points with quiet significance 
to man's own heart, and to her own continual lesson, that the creator of 
that heart is good. Man takes consolation from the hint : amongst the 
white memorials of mortality he finds thought still pleasing, though solemn 
and severe, and, amidst yew and cypress shades, catches animating glimpses 
of the remote bright stars aud serene heaven. Spirits of the wise and 
good ! noblest work of all creation ! are ye not worth preserving in the 
sight of God ? The wisdom and benevolence which shine forth in all that 
we can already see of the universe, suggest, that for you there is still some 
place to occupy, and some work to be done, in the immense regions of the 
unseen."* 

' i . . We discern some probability (increasing with the strength of Faith 
in the goodwill of God to perfect us more and more,) that the highest 
state which the soul here reaches, is not and cannot be meant by God as 
its ultimate and absolutely highest ; but that his work begun in it must 
needs go on towards perfection, unchecked by the limit which we call 
Death. Undoubtedly, if we reason from the analogies of organic nature, 
we shall come to an opposite conclusion ; but spiritual action in many re- 
spects is quite peculiar, and especially in this, that we cannot conceive 
of God tying himself (so to say) by general laws, so as to deal otherwise 
with this soul than He would have done if it had been the only soul in the 
universe. . . It remains as a thing not manifestly refused by God. For this 
therefore, from time to time, the Spirit within pleads, and knows that it 
will be accepted in asking, even if the prayer be ignorant. But unless 
some clear conviction can be gained, that the thing asked is according to the 
will of God) the soul cannot have confidence that the petition will be ful- 
filled ; and to ascertain this by direct vision, is (to me hitherto) impossible : 
for to our blind eyes many things seem easy, which Almighty wisdom 

* Hennell's Christian Theism, 1st Ed. 1839, pp. 79-80. 

L 



146 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

vated minds are, will, perhaps from hence alone, be strongly inclined to 
believe it the truth." This appears to many the only sufficient means of 
accounting for the general concurrence of mankind in this belief ; which, 
having become dim by the lapse of time and subject to the action of 
human reason, deteriorated and diverged into the wildest forms. Thus 
varied, it has indeed been a part of all religious systems, (all of which 
may have been derived, through some channel, from the original divine 
source,) and by means of them it has been diffused amongst all but the 
most savage nations. Whether, otherwise, the mass of the people would 
have conceived the idea for themselves, we cannot say. Judging from 
the uneducated population of our own country, the probability would 
seem in the negative. And this supposition of the uncertainty of the 
natural instinct is confirmed by the very opposite opinions acknowledged 
by thoughtful unbelievers who have thrown themselves unreservedly 
upon it : — showing, indeed, the utter unreliableness of human "intuition" 
to establish any religious doctrine, since it can come to no definite con- 
clusion even with regard to this which has been most vehemently claimed 
as representing the all but universal voice of nature. 

XXIII. The doctrine of a future state amongst the common people 

The ancients of the ancient Grecians was very vague and unpractical ; 
had a very vague more like the result of notions inculcated by priests who, 
notion of it. -whether believing them themselves or not, thought them 

good for the people, than like the innate idea of their own minds. "We 
find Socrates and his disciples represented by Plato as fully admitting, 
that ' men in general were highly incredulous as to the soul's future 
existence,' and as expecting that 'it would, at the moment of our natural 
death, be dispersed (as he expresses it) like air or smoke, and cease alto- 
gether to exist, so that it would require no little persuasion and argument 
to convince them that the soul can exist after death, and can retain any 
thing of its powers and intelligence ;' — when we find this, I say, asserted, 
or rather alluded to, as notoriously the state of popular opinion, we can 
surely entertain but little doubt that the accounts of Tartarus and Ely- 
sium were regarded as mere poetical fables, calculated to amuse the imagi- 
nation, but unworthy of serious belief."* Confirmation of this is given in 
Thucydides' account of the behaviour of the Athenians during the great 
pestilence, and in the oration of Pericles to the friends of those fallen in 
battle, who " when represented as exhausting every topic of consolation, 
speaks of their glorious memory, and of the hope of other sons to be 
born, who may fill their place, and emulate their worth ; but adds not 
one word of their future life and immortality, "f Similarly, later, amongst 
the Romans, " we find the younger Pliny, in his account of the eruption 
of Vesuvius, recording the excitement of a feelmg not unlike that of the 
Athenians in the plague ; viz. : a general distrust of divine aid, arising 
from the notion, that the gods themselves were possibly involved in the 
impending ruin. "J 

* Whately's Essays, p. 35. f Ibid, p. 49, Thucyd. lib. n. c. 35, et seq. 
X rbid, p. 50. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



147 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

knows cannot be granted ; and while the intellect hesitates on this point, 
the soul dares not to dogmatize. Confidence thus there is none, and 
Aspiration is her higher state. But then, there is herein nothing whatever 
to distress her : no cloud of grief crosses the area of her vision, as she 
gazes upward : for if her Lord, infinite in love and wisdom, sees that it 
cannot be, she herself could not wish it. While in such vigour of life as to 
have any insight into God's mind, she is also in vigour enough to trample 
selfishness under foot."* 

" The doctrine of eternal life is always popular. If you were to poll 
the world to-day and get the ayes and noes of all mankind, 999 out of 
every 1000 would give their vote for immortality. Yet few have ever 
reasoned about it much, and demonstrated their immortality. Most men 
think that they take it on trust from the ' mouth of their priest, or from 
'revelation,' — the Christians from the Bible, the Mahometans from the 
Koran. But it is not so ; we do not take it on trust from a man. Like 
what else comes from the primitive instincts of the human heart, we take 
it on trust from the Father ; from no less authority. — I mention these 
things to show, first, how deep is the instinct of immortality in our heart, 
for all nations above the nakedness of the savage have fastened their hopes 
on this ; they have dug down to this primitive rock, never very far from 
the surface : and next, to show how strong it is, which even the fear of 
the future eternal torment cannot annihilate. For 16 or 1800 years the 
Christian Church has preached the doctrine of immortality in such a form 
that it is only another name for the wrath of God and eternal torment 
to the mass of men ; but with all this preaching it has not preached the 
belief thereof out of the heart of man, and it cannot. . . The leading 
philosophers of Europe seem to have small faith in immortality ; some 
positively deny it ; a few mock at it. Many of the enlightened Germans 
say all belief therein is a misfortune, for it clouds over men's happiness 
now with fear of future torment, hinders their progress, and makes them 
believe that virtue and justice are not good for their own sake, but only as 
means to another end. There is a great deal of truth in their objections 
no doubt ; but they all apply only to a false idea of immortality and a 
wrong use of it ; not at all against the true doctrine itself. . Immortality 
has kept the field against Augustine and Jerome, the Basils, the Gregories 
and Bernard ; has held its own, spite of Aquinas and Calvin and Edwards 
and Hopkins and Emmons, and I think it can laugh at Strauss and Comte 
and Feuerbach. Has it not in its time heard lions roar, and yet held its 
own against the hell of the church ? Do you think then it has anything 
to fear from the earth of the material philosophers ?"f 

XXIII. The instinct that suggests immortality belongs to the higher 
faculties of man, and is naturally undeveloped in rude minds. Besides, the 
disposition of the Grecians was one that delighted in the present, in warm, 
genial, earthly life, and shrank from the cold dreamy existence of the shades, 
as represented by the idealism of their poets. Their animal courage too, 
with their love of fame and noble patriotism, sinking their regard for self 

* Newman on the Soul, 1st Ed. 1849, pp. 193-4. 

f Parker's Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, 1853, pp. 155-6 ; 159. 



148 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

[no ground for belief in 

And even amongst the Grecian philosophers, (as already argued,*) the 
immortality of man was not more than an uncertain speculation. "In 
reality, the doctrine never was either generally admitted among them, or 
satisfactorily proved by any of them, even in the opinion of those who 
argued in favour of it. . . The arguments commonly employed by them, 
(and also by such deists of the present day as admit the doctrine,) viz : 
the distinct nature of the soul from the corruptible body with which it is 
united — the vigour and energy which the soul sometimes manifests when 
the body is in the lowest state of exhaustion, &c, led them naturally to 
the inference, that the soul will continue to exist after death in a separate 
state, never to be re-united with matter. They represented the body as a 
kind of prison of the spiritual part, from which it was to be released by 
death ; and the soul accordingly would energize, they supposed, more 
freely, and enjoy the happiness of more exalted contemplation, when freed 
from its connexion with gross material substance. . . But the very notion 
of the soul's immortality, as explained by them, involved the complete 
destruction of distinct personal existence. Their notion was (I mean, 
when they spoke their real sentiments ; for in their exoteric or popular 
works they often inculcate, for the benefit of the vulgar, the doctrine of 
future retribution, which they elsewhere laugh at,) that the soul of each 
man is a portion of that Spirit which pervades the Universe, to which it 
is re-united at death, and becomes again an un distinguishable part of the 
great whole ; just as the body is resolved into the general mass of matter. 
So that their immortality, or rather eternity, of the soul, was anterior as 
well as posterior ; as it was to have no end, so it had no beginning ; and 
the boasted continuance of existence, which according to this system we 
are to expect after death, consists in returning to the state in which we 
were before birth ; which, every one must perceive, is the same thing, 
virtually, with annihilation. Let it be remembered then, when the argu- 
ments of the heathen Sages are triumphantly brought forward in proof 
of the soul's immortality, that when they countenanced the doctrine of 
future retribution, they taught, with a view to political expediency, what 
they did not themselves believe ; and that when they spoke their real sen- 
timents on the subject, the eternity of existence which they expected, as 
it implied the destruction of all distinct personality, amounted, practically, 
to nothing at all."f 



XXIV. The Christian Scriptures alone afford the assurance of 
Considered as a immortality ; and they afford it inasmuch as they de- 
reward of Virtue, scribe it as "the gift of God through Jesus Christ." 
it encourages m- ^his certainty alone makes the doctrine practical, and 

terested motives ; J : - 

not S0> as a gift efficient as a motive, and this description of it alone 

of God. makes that motive pure and disinterested. To say, as is 

said by a large proportion of Deists, as well as by many Christians, that 



Part i. A. xxix. + "Whately's Essays, pp. 54, 55, 61-63. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



149 



HE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

in their country's honour, caused them to have little dread of death, and 
little need of the belief in another life.* The contemplative mind of the 
East was much better adapted to it ; and it harmonized entirely with the 
notions of the Hebrew captives, disappointed of the temporal glory which 
they expected as the favourites of heaven. They held the doctrine, how- 
ever, in a form that is alien to our modes of thought ; so that when Chris- 
tianity sealed it up as a divine truth that the body is to rise as well as the 
soul, with other local accompanying beliefs, it delivered the doctrine in a 
form that makes it now incredible to minds of average intelligence ; 
whereas, otherwise, the natural feeling would doubtless have embodied 
itself amongst us in a form, which would at least have been consonant to 
the state of religion and science of the day.f 

XXI Y. Comte says : "Religious, and especially Christian resignation 
is, in plain truth, only a prudent temporizing, which enjoins the endurance 
of present suffering in view of an ultimate ineffable felicity. A true resig- 
nation, — that is, a permanent disposition to endure, steadily, and without 
hope of compensation, all inevitable evils, can proceed only from a deep sense 
of the connection of all kinds of natural phenomena with invariable laws."J 
Every supposed interruption to these laws is an impediment to moral im- 
provement ; every supposed addition to increase their efficacy, weakens their 
real effect. The natural consequences of actions are sufficient to cause vir- 
tuous conduct and character, without any superadded reward or punishment ; 
■ — which in human affairs, as principle becomes more enlightened and moral 
feeling more delicate, are increasingly perceived to be out of place and mis- 
chievous : as a benevolent man of refinement would feel insulted by the 
offer of a medal for saving the life of a drowning fellow-creature, and as 
philanthropic legislators abhor to inflict upon criminals any degree of gra- 
tuitous suffering ; — and which, supposed to be in reserve for another world, 
are proportionately injurious in so far as they are practically borne in mind 
and relied on. Every clear exposition of what justice requires in respect of 
retribution, (as on the opposite page,) shows only the more how the ideas 
attached to Christianity are extraneous and therefore pernicious. If justice 
cannot be carried out, is not intended to be carried out, on the Christian 
scheme, but on the contrary our future weal and woe are to be a pure boon, 
or a pure infliction, dependent on the personal will and pleasure of God, — 
and, be it remembered, it eternal happiness can never be merited by man, 
neither can eternal pain, — then is the idea of retribution altogether set 
aside, and its moral effect counteracted. If heaven and hell be not what 
we have a right to expect, they are stupendous immoral influences, drawing 

us away from the legitimate dominion of conscience. If, indeed, we had 

truly reason to expect that the natural consequences of our actions would 
be continued to ourselves to eternity, it would doubtless infinitely increase 
their importance to us ; and if Nature intended this immortal prolongation 

* See Reports of Lectures by W. J. Pox. An Inquiry into the History of Opinion 
concerning Death, and the Mental state induced by its approach. Lecture ii. 1838. 
t See ante. Part I, O. xxix. J Positive Philosophy, Vol. n. p. 45. 



150 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

there is a natural and necessary connection between a virtuous life and 
eternal happiness after death, is indeed to make virtue a mere matter of 
prudence and self-interest ; but the Christian view of it tends to fill the 
whole soul with that love and aspiration towards God, which imply the 
entire abnegation of self. 

"Reason as well as revelation shews, that for man to expect to earn 
for himself, by the practice of virtue, and claim as his just right, an 
immortality of exalted happiness, is a most extravagant and groundless 
pretension. It would indeed be no greater folly and presumption to con- 
tend, that the brutes are able by their own effort to exalt themselves to 
rationality.— In the case indeed of some eminent personages of antiquity, 
the arrogant hope seems to have been cherished by themselves or their 
followers, that their great exploits and noble qualities would raise them 
after death into the number of the gods ; and this is precisely the expecta- 
tion we are speaking of : for it should be remembered, that by the term 
which we translate 4 God,' the ancient heathens understood, not, as we 
do, the Author and Governor of all things, but merely, a Being of a 
nature superior to man, perfect, happy, and immortal ; such, in short, 
as the Christian hopes to become after death. Now to pretend that man 
is naturally capable of raising himself to this state — of thus elevating him- 
self into a god — is surely no less extravagant than to suppose that a 
brute is qualified to exalt itself into a rational Being. . . Nor does the 
belief in a Deity who is the Moral-Governor of the Universe, in reality 
alter the case so much as many seem to suppose ; for if by the practice 
of virtue man were entitled to claim such a reward from the justice of 
God, he might strictly and properly be said to earn and acquire it for him- 
self, as a labourer his wages. Men are apt indeed to speak of the justice 
of the Deity as leading him to the rewarding of virtue, as well as the 
punishing of sin, in the next world, (considering such reward and punish- 
ment as the natural consequence of each respectively,) as if the two cases 
were parallel ; whereas in truth they are even inconsistent with each other : 
for a man deserves reward only for doing something beyond his bounden duty 
—something, consequently, which he would not deserve punishment for 
omitting. This obvious rule of justice every one assents to in human af- 
fairs : no positive rewards are proposed to men by legislators for merely 
fulfilling their engagements, and paying their debts ; though if they fail to 
do so, punishments are denounced ; those, on the other hand, who volun- 
tarily devote their fortunes, their services, or their persons, to the public 
good, we consider as worthy to be rewarded by riches, honours, or rank ; 
while no one ever thought of denouncing punishment for the mere absence 
of such munificent liberality and generous public spirit ; which indeed would 
lose their very name and character by the attempt to make them compul- 
sory. In no case, in short, does justice dictate reward to be placed on the 
one side of an alternative, and punishment on the other."* 



* Whately's Essays, pp. 101-104. 



ANSWERS OP INFIDELITY. 



151 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

of our individual existence, she would doubtless also have intended that 
our-Selves should be infinitely important and dear to us : — and how can it 
be called "folly or arrogance" to have such faith in the Divine power of 
Nature as to believe that thus conditioned " the brute might, by his own 
efforts, exalt himself to rationality," and "the man elevate himself to 
a god" ? — But Nature indulges no such proud anticipations except for 
the species ; the individual she seems to wish not to concentre his whole 
care upon himself : — nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo, is the 
motto of natural religion. 

The desire for immortality as an eternal enjoyment of God's love, which 
is thought to be an abnegation of self, is on the contrary thus represented 
by Feuerbach : — " The heavenly life, or what we do not here distinguish 
from it — personal immortality, is a characteristic doctrine of Christianity. 
It is certainly in part to be found among the heathen philosophers ; but 
with them it had only the significance of a subjective conception, because 
it was not connected with their fundamental view of things. How con- 
tradictory, for example, are the expressions of the Stoics on this subject ! 
It was among the Christians that personal immortality first found that 
principle whence it follows as a necessary and obvious consequence. The 
contemplation of the world, of Nature, of the race, was always coming 
athwart the ancients ; they distinguished between the principle of life and 
the living subject, between the soul, the mind, and self: whereas the 
Christian abolished the distinction between soul and person, species and 
individual, and therefore placed immediately in self what belongs only to 
the totality of the species. But the immediate unity of the species and 
individuality, is the highest principle, the God of Christianity, — in it the 
individual has the significance of the absolute being, — and the necessary, 
immanent consequence of this principle is personal immortality. Or rather : 
the belief in personal immortality is perfectly identical with the belief in a 
personal God; — i.e., that which expresses the belief in the heavenly, 
immortal life of the person, expresses God also, as he is an object to 
Christians, namely, as absolute, unlimited personality. . The belief in the 
immortality of man is the belief in the divinity of man, and the belief in 
God is the belief in pure personality, released from all limits, and con- 
sequently eo ipso immortal. . The doctrine of immortality is the final 
doctrine of religion ; its testament, in which it declares its last wishes. 
Here therefore it speaks out undisguisedly what it has hitherto suppressed. 
If elsewhere the religious soul concerns itself with the existence of another 
being, here it openly considers only its own existence ; if elsewhere in 
religion man makes his existence dependent on the existence of God, he 
here makes the reality of God dependent on his own reality ; and thus 
what elsewhere is a primitive, immediate truth to him, is here a derivative, 
secondary truth : if I am not immortal, God is not God, if there is no 
immortality, there is no God ; — a conclusion already drawn by the apostle 
Paul. If we do not rise again, then Christ is not risen, and all is vain. 
Let us eat and drink. . . God is the guarantee of my future existence, 



152 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 
XXV. The "spiritualist" argues that "he who loves God 

It is the most without any thought of heaven, must be more unselfish 
animating of hu- than he who hopes for it." But, "religious love and 
man motives. hope ^ difficulty exist in such an atm0 sphere as 

is thus created. It is a sublime altitude doubtless of transcendental virtue, 
to which also Shaftesbury, and some few other Deists have already aspired ; 
but no ordinary 'spiritual' beings can breathe that rarefied air. Once 
leave a man to conclude, or even to suspect that he and his cat end toge- 
ther, and if a bad man, he will gladly accept a release from every claim 
but that of his passions and appetites (the effects being more or less 
philosophically calculated according to his intellectual power) ; while the 
best man would be liable to contemplate God and religion with a depres- 
sed and faltering heart. He would be apt to lose all energy ; he would 
feel it impossible to repress doubts of the infinite wisdom of Him (what- 
ever he might think of his power) who had given him the soul of a man 
and the life of a butterfly ; conceptions and aspirations so totally dispro- 
portioned to the evanescence of his being ! If, however, it be really 
thought that the hopes of an immortality of virtuous happiness will stand 
in the way of a sublime disinterestedness of spirituality, it ought to be 
recollected that any expectation of happiness, even for a day, will, in its 
measure, have the same effect."* 



THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH 

LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BE- 

XXVI. In Revelation, and in revelation alone, God makes 

A God not himself known to us as a Being whom we can love and 
communicating worship ;f and with the belief in revelation the only 
himself, is no God proper proof of the existence of such a Being falls to 
t0 us ' the ground. We may indeed conceive of a mighty In- 

telligence abiding apart from creation, and ruling by general laws ; but we 
can be no object of interest to Him, nor He to us, except as of wonder 
and curiosity. If He wished to be loved and honoured by us, he must 
have made himself known to us. If he has not done so in Christianity, 
then assuredly not in any other form in the past history of man, nor in 
any to be anticipated in future. We can regard him with no other feeling 
than that of the ancients, who doubted whether he took concern in human 
affairs, whether mankind were as his plaything and sport, or objects of 
entire indifference. Piety has existed only where revelation has been be- 
lieved in : — in a rude, child-like form amongst the Hebrews, in an abused 
form amongst the Mahomedans, — genuinely and rationally only amongst 
Christians. 



* Eclipse of Faith, p. 389. + See ante, Part i. A. iv. 



ANSWERS OP INFIDELITY. 



153 



THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN.] 

because lie is already the certainty and reality of my present existence, my 
salvation, my trust, my shield from the forces of the external world ; hence 
I need not expressly deduce immortality, or prove it as a separate truth, 
for if I have God, I have immortality also. Thus it was with the more 
profound Christian mystics ; to them the idea of immortality was involved 
in the idea of God ; God was their immortal life, — God himself their 
subjective blessedness : he was for them, for their consciousness, what lie is 
in himself, that is, in the essence of religion."* 

XXY. What we have to consider is not what it would be most agree- 
able to us to believe, but what is true. Accustomed as we have been to 
regard a future life as a certain possession in store for us — and very few 
acknowledge themselves to be of the number of those to whom it would be 
a curse and not a blessing, — it seems to most of us one that cannot be dis- 
pensed with, the denial of it as a cruel defrauding us of what is necessary to 
our content of mind. But there can be no good, there must be harm in 
deceiving ourselves : if the doctrine is not true, we can do without it, — we 
must do without it ; — and we shall probably find that we are in fact better 
without it. If, after all, there should be some kind of truth in the 
doctrine at present unthought of, — in which case it will be undoubtedly 
good for man to know,' — it will reveal itself in time to the patient student 
of Nature. Meanwhile, we have to think less of the securing of our 
happiness, and more of " doing the duty that is nearest to us."f 

CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, 

LIEVING IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

XXVI. But " Revelation", we believe, is not true : — what then have 
we to do with its supposed advantages ? Very vain indeed is it for us to 
lay out a plan of creation, and say, this suits us best, and therefore we 
will believe in it. If it is not the mighty irreversible fact, our most 
decided preference makes no difference at all in the matter. Because we 
do not find the God we want in heaven, can we be content with fashioning a 
false idol of our own imagination, and setting it up there instead ? This 
sort of piety we think the world is much better without. Piety, as it 
showed itself in the earnest, unsophisticated, child-like mind of the race, 
was genuine and beautiful ; but in becoming men we can no longer feel 
as children : and perhaps it is only a poetic superstition to think that the 
feelings of children are to be esteemed preferable to those of men. 



* Essence of Christianity, pp. 170-174. 

t Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, 2d Ed. 1837, p. 201. 



154 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief 
XXVII. Man feels within himself the need of God ; as soon 

Men have failed as ms mental powers have acquired any vigour, and he 
to discover him becomes conscious of himself, he begins to feel after God : 

by intuition^' " ""^ t0 ^ ^ h ® ^ ° f himSelf attain * 

Though He be "not far from every one of us," yet He 

remains the " Unknown God" until an apostle "declare him unto us."* 
Grecian poetry might suggest, "we are his offspring," but the phrase had 
no real meaning till God sent his only-begotten Son to make it known. 
The most spiritual of Grecian philosophers thought, like "spiritualists" 
of our own day, that he had an intuition by which he could discern that 
God had an affinity with his own nature ; but he had no confidence of 
finding such an intuition in mankind in general, which should make the 
idea intelligible to them. " It is a difficult thing," he says,t "to discover 
the nature of the Creator of the universe ; and, being discovered, it is 
impossible, and would be even impious, to expose the discovery to vulgar 
understandings." For themselves, luxuriating in the noble exercise of 
dialectics, with self-admiring consciousness of the greatness and dignity of 
their own mental capacity, the idea of God as the "soul of the world" 
was sufficient for philosophers to debate upon, and to contemplate as an 
image of beauty ; but to the people they knew they must speak of the 
"gods," with attributes that brought them near to the feelings of acting 
and suffering men. And as the Platonists, by meditating on their own 
souls, gained an image, — an imagination, — of an Infinite Soul, but never 
did in fact, — as men never can", — by themselves get beyond themselves ; so 
the Epicureans, by meditating on material atoms, attained to no idea of 
Divine Spirit at all, — though to the people they too spoke of "gods," 
very much to be revered, but not to be supposed willing to interrupt their 
own supreme content by the charge of a troublesome world. Certainly 
it is natural to men to believe in Deity ; the great majority, if not the 
whole of mankind, confess it in their hopes and fears, and nearly as many 
in their intelligence ; but they believe it only in faith, the disposition 
which leads men as children to receive the Word of God. There is an 
intuitive desire for knowledge of God, in the human breast, but it amounts 
not to intuition, to real knowledge. It seems to have been implanted 
within us expressly in order to prepare the way for revelation. It gives 
the impulse to reason, to make it try its powers on the theme all above 
its reach, that it may thereby show its insufficiency. Beyond the first 
proposition, that there must be some adequate cause for our own and the 
world's existence, to which unknown cause the name of " God" is given, 
there is nothing that Reason can predicate of Deity, — except mere nega- 
tions, that He is not mortal, not finite — that is received as positive truth 
by universal consent. Not even is it uncontrovertible to all men's reason 
that God is not material ; since it is truly said, that we know no more 

* Acts xvii. 23, 27. 

f Plato, in Timceo. Quoted in Enfield's History of Philosophy , 1819. Vol. i. p. 228. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



155 



THE EXISTENCE OP GOD.] 

XXYII. The method which has been pursued by philosophers in general, 
of assuming the existence of a Divine Being as a metaphysical hypothesis, 
which would enable them -to solve the problems they have imposed on 
themselves, is entirely abandoned by those who take Science as the only 
legitimate basis for Reasoning. If by this which they believe to be the 
true Philosophy, nothing prove to be discoverable about God except the 
utter unfathomableness of the mystery, they must content themselves with 
their inevitable ignorance, seeing there is no other method by which, 
according to their conviction, they will not be misled. 

"Metaphysical Philosophy and Positive Science are irreconcilable. 
The former aspires to the knowledge of Essences and Causes ; the 
latter aspires only to the knowledge of Laws. The one pretends to dis- 
cover what things are in themselves, apart from their appearances to sense, 
and whence they came. The other only wishes to discover their modus 
operandi ; observing the constant co-existences and successions of pheno- 
mena amongst themselves, and generalizing them into some one Law. In 
other words, the one endeavours to compass the Impossible ; the other 
knows the limits of human faculties, and contents itself with the Possible. 
. . It is a law of the human mind that speculations on all generalities begin 
deductively : and the only road to truth is to begin inductively. The 
origin of Positive Science is to be sought in Philosophy. The boldest and 
the grandest speculations came first. Man needed the stimulus of some 
higher reward than that of merely tracing the co-existences and successions 
of phenomena. Nothing but a solution of the mystery of the universe 
could content him ; nothing less could tempt him to the labour of sustained 
speculation. Thus had Astronomy its first impulse given to it by astrolo- 
gers. Nightly did the old Chaldeans watch the stars in the hope of wresting 
from them their secret influence over the destiny of man. Chemistry 
came from Alchemy ; Physiology from Auguries. Many long and weary 
years, of long and weary struggles, were passed before men learned to 
suspect the vanity of their efforts, First came scepticism of human know- 
ledge altogether. Next came scepticism of the Methods men had followed. 
Induction arose. Slowly and laboriously, but as surely as slowly, did this 
method lead men into the right path. Axioms were obtained : axioms 
that had stood the test of proof, that were adequate expressions of general 
facts, not simply dogmatical expressions of opinions. Deduction again 
resumed its office ; this time to good purpose : it was no longer guess-work. 
. . The history of Science is the history of progress. Its methods are 
stamped with certainty, because they are daily extending our certain know- 
ledge ; because the immense experience of years and of myriads of intelli- 
gences confirms their truth, without casting a shadow of suspicion on them. 
Science progresses, and must continue to progress. Philosophy only moves 
in the same endless circle. Its first principles are as much a matter of dis- 
pute as they were 2000 years ago. It has made no progress, although in 
constant movement. Precisely the same questions are being agitated in 
Germany at this moment as were being discussed in ancient Greece ; and 
with no better means of solving them, with no better hopes of success. 



156 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground foe, belief in 

what matter is than spirit, neither have we any actual basis on which we 
can argue that the latter is the cause of the former ; nay, it may well be 
urged, that if we cease to idealize, and turn from abstract conceptions to 
observation of nature, the analogy of the world would rather lead us to 
suppose that spirit is developed out of matter than the reverse. The in- 
stant men begin to define their idea of God, they meet with contradiction 
frosi other men's apprehensions ; and the more they reason about their own 
idea, and endeavour to work it out, does it become an abstraction and an 
unreality to themselves. Philosophers in all ages have mutually hurled 
against those of opposite schools the charge of atheism ; and not without 
honest cause. To the eye of religion it has always been apparent, that 
mere philosoph y is, and must necessarily be, atheistic. 

XXVIII. Mr. Rogers makes his sceptic say: " Even as to that 

His existence is fundamental position, — the existence of a Being of un- 
not to be proved limited power and wisdom, (as to his unlimited goodniss, 
fro^De^n" 1611 * ^ Relieve that nothing but an external revelation can abso- 
lutely certify us,) I feel that I am much more indebted to 
those inferences from design, which these writers (of the school of £ spiritual- 
ism') make so light of, than to any clearness in the imperfect intuition ; for 
if I found — and surely this is the true test — the traces of design less con- 
spicuous in the external world, confusion there as in the moral, and in 
both greater than is now found in either, I extremely doubt whether the 
faintest surmise of such a Being would have suggested itself to me."* 
But this " making light" of the argument from Design, is a proof, that in 
the Infidel point of view it has been found wanting by those who would 
have gladly availed themselves of it if it had been possible. The final re- 
source of ' ' intuition" for those unbelievers who are striving to holdfast 
their theism from the general wreck of their faith, is a tacit confession of 
the truth of the Christian position, that unaided human reason is incapable 
of maintaining religion. Professor Newman says :t "In saying the lungs 
were intended to breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument from 
Fitness to Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming majority 
of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds. Yet, in calling it an argu- 
ment, we may seem to appeal to the logical faculty ; and this ivould be an 
error. . No syllogism is pretended, that proves a lung to have been made 
to breathe ; but voe see it by what some call Common Sense, and some 
Intuition." — Let this Common Sense, which wisely believes without logic, 
be yielded to, and it will establish more than a bare Theism. — "If any 
one," Mr. Newman adds presently, " intelligently professes Atheism, the 
more acute he is, the more distinctly we perceive that he is deficient in 
the Religious Faculty."! — Acute intelligence, the Christian agrees, — it is 
his own argument, — without faith, which is the medium through which 

* Eclipse of Faith, p. 125. + The Soul, 1st Ed. p. 32. 
$ Ibid, p. 33. [This is altered in the 3d Edition.] 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



157 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.] 

The united force of thousands of intellects, some of them among the 
greatest that have made the past illustrious, has been steadily concentrated 
on problems, supposed to be of vital importance, and believed to be per- 
fectly susceptible of solution, without the least result. All this meditation 
and discussion has not even established a few first principles. Centuries of 
labour hare not produced any perceptible progress."* 

XXVIII. "When we speak of Design in creation, we are attempting to 
pronounce upon the final cause of things ; which is truly beyond the sphere 
of human reason. The right method of Science is to inquire how things 
exist, not why. Without divine knowledge it is clearly impossible to com- 
prehend Divine intention. To say that we trace design, is equivalent to 

saying that we perceive the definite fulfilment of a plan previously marked 
out, an adaptation of one thing to another so perfect that it must have been 
satisfactory to the Divine idea of fitness. It is a word that belongs to the 
old conception of creation — " God said, let the earth bring forth grass : and 
it -was so : and God saw that it was good" — ; and that becomes quite inappro- 
priate when all nature is regarded as in a state of perpetual evolution. f 
To say that the eye was designed to see, sounds an unobjectionable phrase 
to those who regard the eye as a certain definite organ ; but it is a phrase 
that would not have occurred to the student of nature who had observed 
the progressive stages of improvement in the different kinds of eyes that 
exist in the animal kingdom, from those low orders where the senses first 
begin to act, up to our own, suggesting the probability that organs yet more 
perfect than any hitherto known are still in the process of formation. 
"Under the old theological influences, students are apt to fall into a state 
of anti-scientific admiration when they find the conditions and the fulfilment 
coincide, — -when, having observed a function, anatomical analysis discloses 
a statical position in the organism which allows the fulfilment of the func- 
tion. This irrational and barren admiration is hurtful to science, by habi- 
tuating us to suppose that all organic acts are effected as perfectly as we can 
imagine, thus repressing the expansion of our biological speculations, and 
inducing us to admire complexities which are evidently injurious : and it is 
in direct opposition to religious aims, as it assigns human wisdom as the rule 
and even the limit of the divine, which, if such a parallel is to be esta- 
blished, must often appear to be the inferior of the two. "J An anthropo- 
morphic conception of Deity is necessary until the antagonistic correction of 
science is admitted. Human intelligence is the highest form in which the 
power of Deity manifests itself ; man no longer blindly adapts himself to 
material needs, but self-consciously, — meditates, contrives, designs ; — and 
proudly he believes himself the representative of Deity. As he can deal 
with matter alien to himself, so he conceives God acting outside of creation, 
planning, commanding, making laws. When he sees ends accomplished 
that seem to him fit and good, he hastily judges that this accomplishment 

* Biographical History of Philosophy, by G. H. Lewes. Introduction, pp. ]5, 17, 
19-20. Knight's Weekly Volumes, No. XLV. 

t See the recent work on the Principles of Psychology, by Herbert Spencer, 1855. 
J Comte's Positive Philosophy, Vol. I. p. 395. 



158 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

[no ground for belief in 

Divine aid is given to man, cannot save him from Atheism. Natural 
Theology studied in a Christian spirit, and with a Christian clue to its 
difficulties,* is clear and abundantly satisfactory to the legitimate demand 
of reason thus controlled ; but it furnishes not even evidence of the 
existence of a Designing Creator, that will be accepted as sufficient by the 
bare logician who will yield up his scepticism to nothing short of positive 
demonstration, or the mere man of science for whom there are no facts but 
those obvious to the senses. It shows that there exists Power superior to 
our own, but not how that Power acts,( — not as we do, for man cannot 
create, — ) nor where it resides : we know nothing of intelligence but in 
created, organized beings. The materialist can drag down the argument 
ad absurdum,( — not seeing that the real absurdity lies in employing reason 
where it is out of place, — ) showing that analogy with human workmanship 
( — analogy between the Finite and the Infinite ! — ) would prove a Creator 
himself material and created. "Ergo," reasons Mr. Holyoake, "as we 
were formed by a being superior to us, so the Deity was formed by a being 
superior to him. The difficulty is only removed — we have only found a 
natural watchmaker, a plan-constructor, an animal-manufacturer, a star- 
former — we still want in the end what we wanted in the beginning — a God, 
an original agent, a sole Supreme, a Creator, a First Cause !"t Truly, as 
Mr. Newman says, we " account for" nothing in nature by attributing it 
to God ; " a God uncaused and existing from eternity is to the full as in- 
comprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from eternity."! Reason 
is baffled still, and can obtain no satisfaction. If we cannot submit to the 
incomprehensible, we cannot believe in God at all : and it is not likely that 
he who rejects the Gospel revelation of an Almighty Parent, because he 
cannot suffer his reason to be contradicted, will set it aside for the God 
whom he finds in nature. He who scorns the great Design of Christian 
Salvation, who has lost the promise of Immortality, and knows of no gra- 
cious Providence, will have an eye sharp to trace in nature, if design at all, 
much of design for evil as well as for good ; if of purpose at all, much of 
purpose impotent and frustrated ; — life designed to prey upon life, and all 
life designed to be the prey of death. He is likely to think it better to 
believe at once there is no God ; and he will find arguments that will 
convince him. 



* See ante, Part n. O. XIII. and XV. 

f Paley's Natural Theology Refuted, 5th Thousand, 1852. p. 33. The Rev. Stanley 
Faber is quoted p. 86, as saying : " The Deist, I allow, can prove that the universe 
was designed ; but he never did, and he never can prove, without the aid of revelation, 
that the universe was designed by a single designer. . . Natural theology cannot inform 
us whether the world has one God, or millions of Gods." 

J Soul, 1st ed. p. 36. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



159 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.] 

formed the limited object of God's desire, as it would have done of his own : 
the function which the organ performs so well must have been its final cause. 
But science teaches him reverently to take the simple facts as they appear ; 
shows him that the function is the result, and not the originator of the 
organ, that the use of the organ depends on the structure of the organ, and 
that the habits of the animal are those which are consequent upon its organ- 
ization. Things are; by Divine Law, Divine Will, — Will without caprice 
is Law : for human ideas extended to Deity lose their meaning. To speak 
— as it is indeed difficult to avoid speaking, when we confine our attention 
to any limited series of nature's operations, — of a Divine Purpose, must be 
only a figure of speech to us, because it extends utterly beyond our power 
of knowledge ; but we do not the less recognize that the regularity of the 
movements of nature are an evidence of a steady and mighty tendency 
working in a certain direction. Science does not indeed recognize the God 
who moulds the plastic earth in his hands, or who once for all subjected it 
to immutable laws, and then deserted it ; but it finds the God that works 
within, the great principle of Life and Growth, and therefore of Intelligence 
and Love. 

The following is Comte's forcible and scornful rejection of the charge of 
atheism:* "Although I have long formally rejected all solidarity — dog- 
matic, no less than historic — between positivism and what is called athe- 
ism, I will here indicate a few summary points of view. Even considered 
under the purely intellectual aspect, atheism only constitutes a very imperfect 
emancipation, since it tends to prolong indefinitely the metaphysical stage 
by its ceaseless pursuit of new solutions of theological problems, instead 
of pushing aside all such problems as essentially inaccessible. The true 
positive spirit consists in always substituting the study of laius to that of 
causes — the how to the why. It is, therefore, incompatible with the 
ambitious dreams of a misty atheism relative to the formation of the 
universe, the origin of animals, <fcc. Positivism, in its appreciation of our 
diverse stages of speculation, does not hesitate to declare these doctoral 
chimeras very inferior — even in rationality — to the spontaneous beliefs of 
mankind. For the principle of all theology consisting in explaining 
phenomena by the intervention of a will, it can only be set aside by the 
recognition of the truth that causes are inaccessible, and by the study of the 
laivs. So long as we persist in solving the problems of our infancy, it is 
idle to reject the naive method which our young imagination applied to 
them, and which alone suit their nature. . . Atheists may therefore be 
regarded as the most inconsequent of theologians, since they attempt the 
same problems while rejecting the only suitable method." 

Feuerbach, who always speaks of God in the sense of religion as 
opposed to science, describes thus the conception of him as a Being of the 
understanding :f " God, said the schoolmen, the Christian fathers, and 
long before them the heathen philosophers, — God is immaterial essence, 

* In his Discourse on the Ensemble of Positivism, quoted and translated in Leader, 
April 17, 1852, p. 376. f Essence of Christianity, pp. 34-5. 



160 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no geound for belief in 

XXIX. The work of Professor Newman on the "Soul"— 

Modern Theism written, as he tells us,* in the hopes of its proving a 
is but degenerate safeguard against " that desolating Pantheism which is 
Christianity. abroad," — may fairly be taken as the best representation 

of that state of mind which at the present day endeavours to reconcile 
devotional feeling with unbelief in Christianity : and by its singular can- 
dour, it may be said, it makes manifest the uuteuableness of its position. 
He explains that the Soul is "that side of human nature upon which, we 
are in contact with the Infinite, and with God, the Infinite Personality" ;f 
this spiritual nature being distinct from the moral, but like it developed in 
a natural manner. When the soul, by means of its function of Reverence, 
which constitutes Religion, has elevated itself to the perception of Deity, — 
every other faculty being truly represented as incapable of it, — then first 
God may be supposed to hold commnuion with man ; having, as it were, 
waited 'passively until human effort had attained this pomt. "Man must 
learn for himself," is the maxim of Infidelity, and Mr. Newman has 
adhered to it hitherto ; but now in the end he can no longer resist the 
Christian conviction that has been pressing upon him, and he nullifies it by 
the tardy admission that God must help him. This is at once faith in the 
supernatural. The God who bends his ear to the suppliant, child-like 
appeal of trusting hearts, is no longer the formal Power who rules by 
general laws, but the Christian's God : — so restricted, however, so exclu- 
sively limited in his operations, as to be indeed but a miniature copy of the 
great original. Acknowledge man's need of God in the end, and his aid 
will soon be required at an earlier stage ; nor is there any resting place of 
satisfaction to the consistent thinker till the whole doctrine of Revelation 
is recovered. 

" ' The Bible,' says Mr. Newman, 4 is pervaded by a sentiment, which 
is implied everywhere, viz : the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Per- 
fect God with the heart of each faithful ivorshipper. This is that which is 
wanting in Greek philosophers, Euglish Deists, German Pantheists, and all 
formalists. This is that wliich so often edifies me in Christian writers and 
speakers when I ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences. 'J 
It is" unaccountable " that the universal spiritual faculty should act thus 
capriciously, and equally" so "that Mr. Newman does not perceive, that 
if it were not for the Bible, his religion would no more have assumed 
the peculiar cast it has than that of Aristotle or Cicero. Sentiments 
due to the still active influences of his Christian education he imputes to 
the direct intuitions of spiritual vision, just as we are apt to confound 
the original and acquired perceptions of our eye-sight. — He is in the 
condition of one who mistakes a reflected image for the object itself, or a 
forgotten suggestion of another for an original idea. In the camera obscura 
of his mind, he flatters himself that the coloured forms there traced are 
the original inscriptions upon the walls, forgetful of the little aperture 
which has let in the light."§ 

* Soul, Preface, p. xii. The passage is omitted in the 3d ed. 

+ Ibid, p. vii. £ Phases, p. 118. § Eclipse of Faith, pp. 145-6. 



I 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



161 



THE EXISTENCE OP GOD.] 

intelligence, spirit, pure understanding. Of God as God, no image can 
be made ; but canst thou frame an image of mind ? Has mind a form 1 
Is not its activity the most inexplicable, the most incapable of representa- 
tion ? God is incomprehensible ; but knowest ' thou the nature of the 
intelligence ? Hast thou searched out the mysterious operation of thought, 
the hidden nature of self-consciousness ? Is not self-consciousness the 
enigma of enigmas ? Did not the old mystics, schoolmen, and fathers, 
long ago compare the incomprehensibility of the divine nature with that 
of the human intelligence, and thus, in truth, identify the nature of God 
with the nature of man ? God as God — as a purely thinkable being, an 
object of the intellect, — is thus nothing else than the reason in its utmost 
intensification become objective to itself. It is asked what is the under- 
standing or the reason ? The answer is found in the idea of God. Every- 
thing must express itself, reveal itself, make itself objective, affirm itself. 
God is the reason expressing, affirming itself as the highest existence." 
4 ' The various proofs of the existence of God are nothing else than various 
highly interesting forms in which the human nature affirms itself. Thus, 
e.g. the physico-theological proof (or proof from design) is the self-affirma- 
tion of the calculated activity of the understanding."* " The belief in the 
existence of God is the belief in a special existence, separate from the 
existence of man and Nature. A sjDecial existence is therefore only then 
a true and living one when special effects, immediate appearances of God, 
miracles, are believed in. "Where, on the other hand, the belief in God 
is no longer a special faith, where the general being of the world takes 
possession of the whole man, there also vanishes the belief in special effects 
and appearances of God. Belief in God is wrecked, is stranded on the 
belief in the world, in natural effects as the only true ones. As here the 
belief in miracles is no longer any thing more than the belief in historical, 
past miracles, so the existence of God is also only an historical, in itself 
atheistic conception. "f 

XXIX. " The fundamental dogmas of Christianity are realized wishes 
of the heart ; — the essence of Christianity is the essence of human feeling. 
Longing is the necessity of feeling ; and feeling longs for a personal God. . 
To see God is the highest wish., the highest triumph of the heart. Christ 
is this wish, this triumph, fulfilled. God, as an object of thought only, 
i.e. God as God, is always a remote being ; the relation to him is an 
abstract one. . However his works, the proofs of love which he gives us, 
may make his nature present to us, there always remains an unfilled void, 
— the heart is unsatisfied, we long to see him. . Christ is God known per- 
sonally ; Christ, therefore, is the blessed certainty that God is what the 
heart desires and needs him to be. God, as the object of prayer, is indeed 
already a human being, since he sympathizes with human misery, grants 
human wishes ; but still he is not yet an object to the religious conscious- 

* Essence of Christianity, p. 193, note. f Ibid, p. 292. 
M 



162 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief m 

XXX. But the ordinary frame of mind of unbelievers is one 
Infidelity natu- in which the intellect is not likely to yield up any of the 

rally leads to uni- ground it has gained from the dominion of Faith. The 
versai Scepticism. rejection of Christianity was its first triumph ; natural 
theology must fall before it as a second. The mind is in the same position 
with regard to the belief in the existence of God, as it was with regard to 
the belief of the truth of Christianity. In both cases, "man is placed 
amidst evidence abundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and 
yet beset with difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason."* 
The evidences are plain and obvious ; the difficulties are far-fetched and 
abstruse : — and so much the more does the intellect delight itself in setting 
them forth. "The argument" for the "eternal power and godhead" 
traceable in creation " depends on a principle which, whatever may be its 
metaphysical history or origin, is one which man perpetually recognizes, 
which every act of his own consciousness verifies, which he applies fear- 
lessly to every phenomenon known or unknown ; — viz : That every effect 
has a cause (though he knows nothing of their connexion), and that effects 
which bear marks of design have a designing cause. . This principle is so 
familiar, that if he were to affect to doubt it, in any practical case in 
human life, he would only be laughed at as a fool, or pitied as insane." . . 
Yet there are "moods in which we can catch man, — perhaps after long 
meditation on the metaphysical grounds of human belief, — when he begins 
half to doubt, with unusual modesty, whether the child of dust is war- 
ranted to conclude any thing on a subject which loses itself in the infinite, 
and which so far transcends all his powers of apprehension. . Let him 
ponder for awhile on Self-subsistence, Eternity, Creation ;t . . let him once 
humbly ponder such incomprehensible difficulties as these, and he will 
soon feel that though in the argument from design there seemed but one 
vast scene of triumph for his reason, there is as large a scene of exertion 
left for his faith." What man ought to do, is "not to let his ignorance 
control his knowledge, but to let his reason accept the proofs which justify 
his faith in accepting the difficulties. In no case is he, it appears, war- 
ranted to look for the certainty which shall exclude (whatever the triumphs 
of his reason) a gigantic exercise of his faith." "The boasted prerogative 
of Reason is that of a limited monarch ; its attempts to make itself ab- 
solute can only end in its own dethronement, and after successive revolu- 
tions, in all the anarchy of absolute pyrrhonism."+ 

XXXI. With equal certainty does experience show that where 
Or to positive the disposition of the mind is more self-confident, and 

Atheism. less addicted to ratiocination, the natural course of Infi- 

delity ends not short of Atheism. 

" Educated men should not wait to be reminded that those who, after 
abandoning a peremptory historic belief, endeavour to retain Faith and 

* Rogers's Essays, Reason and Faith, p. 278. 

+ Consider especially the bewildering results of the investigation into the nature 
of man's own mind. See pp. 257-260. % Ibid, pp. 279, 282, 284, 255. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



163 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. ] 

ness as a real man. Heuce, only in Christ is the last wish of religion 
realized, the mystery of religious feeling solved : — solved however in the 
language of imagery proper to religion, for what God is in essence, that 
Christ is in actual appearance. So far the Christian religion may justly 
be called the absolute religion. That God, who in himself is nothing else 
than the nature of man, should also have a real existence as such, should 
be as man an object to the consciousness — this is the goal of religion. 
And this the Christian religion has attained in the incarnation of God, 
which is by no means a transitory act, for Christ remains man even after 
his ascension, — man in heart and man in form, only that his body is no 
longer an earthly one, liable to suffering."* 

XXX. An habitual and universal scepticism is a morbid disposition 
of mind resulting from the abuse, and not the right use of reason, as every 
sincere man believes his own to be. It is the reverse of the mental con- 
dition induced by the study of science, which, not aiming at the impos- 
sible, acquires knowledge that is certain and satisfactory. 

XXXI. Minds that are imaginative and emotional will never cease to 
idealize where they cannot know ; and hence must spring religion, and 
perhaps religious forms, as long as human nature remains what it is. "We 
think that reason, rightfully employed, will abolish the existing common 
notion of Deity, and all other definite notions as they continue to arise ; 
because reason must ever be sensible that it is a comprehension beyond 
its reach. But it is the part of science ever to deepen our conviction of 
the necessity for a Cause of things, opening as it does to our admiration 
the wondrous working of the mighty Power, in which, however unknown 
and mysterious, we live and move and have our being : producing the sen- 
timents of awe, of confidence, or worship and love, according to the dis- 
position on which it acts. There are some minds, contented in the present 
and sensible, which will simply rejoice in being freed from what to 
them was the tyranny of religion, and may well be called Atheistic in 
the merely negative sense, that they know not, nor much feel the need 
of knowing God. The idealist, on the contrary, the Pantheist, conceives 
and therefore truly finds God everywhere. If philosophy keeps him from 
superstition, yet poetry will make him personify :f and perhaps when 
religion is consciously recognised as the poetry of man's noblest, finest 

nature, it will have its purest, its true influence. This, however, must 

necessarily appear to be in fact a mere form of Atheism, when it is con- 
sidered in contrast with the prevailing belief in a personal Deity. The 
charge of Atheism is, in fact, merely a relative one : there can be no abso- 
lute denial of what there is no absolute notion. One man does not believe 

* Essence of Christianity, pp. 139, 145, 143-4. 

+ " "What is Nature ? Why do I not name thee God ? Art thou not the 
Living Garment of God ? O heavens, is it, in very deed, He, then, that ever 
speaks through thee ; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me ?" 
Sartor Resartus, p. 194. 



164 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

Piety for their comfort, stand upon a slope that has no ledges : Atheism 
in its simplest form yawns to receive those who there stand ; and they know 
themselves to be gravitating towards it. It would be far more reasonable 
for a man to die as a martyr for Atheism — a stage beyond which no further 
progress is possible, than to do so at any point short of that terminus, 
knowing as he does that every day is bringing him nearer to the gulf. 
The stronger the mind is, and the more it has of intellectual massiveness, 
the more rapid will be its descent upon this declivity. Minds of little 
density, and of much airy sentiment, may stay long where they are, just 
as gnats and flies walk to and fro upon the honied sides of a china vase ; 
they do not go down, but never again will they fly."* 



XXXII. It is the great mistake which shows ignorance of the 

We ought to be- nature of the subject, and also a wrong frame of mind 
lieve, as we must in approaching it, to require demonstration of the truth 
act, on Probabi- of religion. "Demonstration we cannot have ; for God 
has not granted demonstration on that or any other sub- 
ject in which duty is involved. . If there had been any system which we 
could not but believe, which we must believe whether we would or not, 
no doubt the requisite evidence would have been such that scepticism 
would have been impossible . . . the word duty is the key to the whole 
mystery, for it implies the possibility of resisting its claims. We do not 
speak of its being incumbent on a man to run out of a burning house, or 
to swim, if he can, when thrown into deep water. He cannot help it. 
If there be a Supreme Ruler of the universe, and if the posture of his 
intelligent creatures be that of submissive obedience to him, it is incon- 
ceivable that a man can ever have experience of his being willing to per- 
form that duty with the sort of demonstration which" is demanded ; " and 
for aught we know, it may be impossible, constituted as we are, that we 
should ever be actually trained to that duty except in the midst of very 
much less than certainty. . And the law of our religious condition is 
throughout in analogy with that of the entire condition of our present life ; 
it is probable evidence only that is given to man in either case, and ' pro- 
bable evidence,' as Bishop Butler says, e often of even wretchedly insuffi- 
cient character.' Nature, or rather God himself, everywhere cries aloud 
to us, 4 Oh ! mortals — certainty, demonstration, infallibility, are not for 
you, and shall not be given to you ; for there must be a sphere for faith, 
hope, sincerity, diligence, patience.' And as if to prove to us not only 
that this evidence is what we must trust to, but that we safely may — He 
impels us by strong necessities of our lower nature operating on the higher 
(which would otherwise, perhaps, plead for the sceptic's inaction in relation 



* The Restoration of Belief , No. I. 1852. p. 94. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



165 



THE EXISTENCE OP GOD.] 

in another man's God ; but there is always something which stands to him- 
self in the place of God. It is only the presumption that some particular 
notions are revealed, that emboldens men to accuse one another of Atheism. 

And, indeed, far more obnoxious to the charge of real Atheism than 
reason, is superstition ; and of ajdnd truly pernicious and immoral. Com- 
pare the servile, mercenary, lying Atheism that hides itself -under hypocrisy, 
with the spirit of the following : — 

u Some who regard all profession of opinion as a mere matter of policy, 
and not of the understanding, will tell me that I can believe as I please, 
and call these Beings of theology what names I please. . but philosophical 
evidence and classification leave no choice in the matter. The existence of 
God is a problem to which the mathematics of human intelligence seems to 
me to furnish no solution. On the threshold of the theme we stagger 
imder a weight of words. We tread amid a dark quagmire bestrewed with 
slippery terms. Now the clearest miss then- way, now the cautious stumble, 
now the strongest fall. If there be a Deity to whom I am indebted, 
anxious for my gratitude or my service, I am as ready to render it as any 
one existent, so soon as I can comprehend the nature of my duty. I, 
therefore, protest against being considered, as Christians commonly con- 
sider the unbeliever, as one who hates God, or is without a reverential 
spirit. Hatred implies knowledge of the objectionable thing, and cannot 
exist where nothing is understood. I am not unwilling to believe in God, 
but I am unwilling to use language for which I have no adequate idea 
present to my own understanding. Deem me not blind to the magnificence 
of nature or the beauties of art, because I interpret their language differently 
from others. I thrill in the presence of the dawn of day, and exult in the 
glories of the setting sun. . It is not in a low, but in an exalted estimate of 
nature that my rejection of the popular theology arises. The wondrous 
manifestations of nature indispose me to degrade it to a secondary rank. 
I am driven to the conclusion that the great aggregate of matter which we 
call Nature is eternal, because we are unable to conceive a state of things 
when nothing was. . . I cannot rank myself with the Theists, because I can 
conceive of nothing beyond nature distinct from it, and above it. The 
language invented by Pope, expressing that ' we look through Nature up 
to Nature's God/ has no significance for me, as I know nothing besides 
Nature, and can conceive of nothing greater. The majesty of the Universe 
so transcends my faculties of penetration, that I pause in awe and silence 
before it. It seems not to belong to man to comprehend its attributes and 
extent, and to affirm what lies beyond it. . This is the inability, rather 
than any design of my own, which resolves me as one of that class of 
speculationists designated, in the technicality of theology, Atheists."* 



* The Logic of Death, by G-. J. Holyoake, sixteenth thousand. 1851. pp. 9—10. 



166 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 
to this as well as to another world,) to play our part ; if we stand shi- 
vering on the brink of action, necessity plunges us headlong in ; if we 
fear to hoist the sail, the strength of the current of life snaps our moorings, 
and compels us to drive. . Faith in that same sort of evidence which the 
sceptic rejects when urged in behalf of religion, prompts the farmer to 
cast in his seed, though he can command no blink of sunshine, nor a drop 
of rain ; the merchant to commit his treasures to the deep, though they 
may all go to the bottom, and sometimes do ; the physician to essay the 
cure of his patient, though often half in doubt whether his remedy will 
kill or save. . . God says to us in effect, 4 On such evidence you must and 
shall act,'' and shows us that we safely may. Without promising us abso- 
lute success in all our plans, or absolute truth in the investigation of 
evidence, he says, in either case, ' Do your best ; be faithful to the light 
you have, diligent and conscientious in your investigations of available 
evidence, great or little — act fearlessly on what appears the truth, and 
leave the rest to me.' "* " Since men in general, (whether from the posses- 
sion of a distinct religious faculty, though it may be corrupt and depraved, 
or a mere rudimentary tendency to religion,) have adopted some religion, 
religious scepticism, in an intelligible sense, is opposed to nature ; . . it is 
opposed to nature again in this way, that whereas restlessness and agitation 
of mind are usually, at all events, warnings to seek relief, scepticism 
produces these as its pure and proper result ; . . since by the confession of 
every mind worthy of respect, the great doctrines of religion, if not true, 
are such that we cannot but wish they were ; since scepticism has nothing 
to allure in ifc, and rather causes misery than happiness ; and since men 
in general easily believe as they ivish, it is an unaccountable paradox, 
than any one should remain a sceptic for a day, except indeed, from a 
guilty fear of the truth ; . . since scepticism tends to misery, it is better not 
to know its truth, and therefore ignorance is better than knowledge ; — if 
Christianity be an illusion, it, at all events, tends to make men happier 
than the truth of scepticism, and therefore error is better than truth, "f 
<£ Supposing the sceptical vietv of the gloom in which we are placed is the 
true one, and that the Christian's is false ; which, nevertheless, is likely 
to be not merely the happier, but the nobler being, — he who sits down in 
querulous repining or slothful inactivity, as the result of doubt ; or he 
who, buoyant with faith and hope, encounters the gloom, and, while 
longing for the dawn, is confident that it will come?" "On the side of 
feeling also" appeal must be made : " feeling is not argument ; but neither 
is man all reason. . Man, indeed, is not called upon to do anything for 

* Eclipse of Faith, pp. 439-442. 

+ Ibid, pp. 436-7. [The form of the sentence altered : the author is exhibiting 
the paradoxes of scepticism.] The argument is that of Pascal in his Dialogue, 
Pensees, Part n. Article ill., showing, ''That it is difficult to demonstrate the 
existence of God by natural reason, but that it is most safe to believe it." 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY, 



1GT 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.] 

XXXII. The whole argument of "believing upon probabilities" is 
based on a profound scepticism as to the power and value of Truth. It is 
an irreligious want of faith in the Divine constitution of the actual world. 
Instead of considering the state of mind that, 4 'if the Christian doctrines 
were not true, would wish they were", as "worthy of respect", it seems to 
us possessed of the most childish folly and presumption : and as for the asser- 
tion that men are " nobler," or even "happier," for believing their own chi- 
meras to be true, — we believe of the first that it is entirely false, of the 
latter, that it may be supposed only in so far as children may be thought 
happier than men, animals than children. 

To say that God gives us defective evidence on purpose to make our 
belief an act of meritorious faith, — besides that it is begging the whole 
question, — is in fact not analogous to, but opposed to the whole analogy of 
the instruction we gain from nature. The calamities that attend our act- 
ing upon uncertain knowledge, lead us, not to trust more, but to be more 
cautious, more careful to gain that accurate knowledge upon which we may 
act securely. The method of nature does not seem to be to give us faith 
and hope and courage as a reward for acting rashly, but rather to give us 
these as a means of helping us to conquer the difficulties in the sphere of 
uncertainty which will always remain to us in some measure, but which 
she impels and encourages us to diminish and gain over, by the advantages 
that immensely accrue to us from every fresh acquisition of the knowledge 
of facts. Nature certainly offers no premiums to contented ignorance. 
She never tells us that it is safer to make sure beforehand of a good har- 
vest, and that a hazardous medicine will cure and not kill ; but rather that 
it is wiser to provide against the risk of failure, and in unknown diseases 
rather to leave nature alone than perhaps officiously to counteract her. 
But in desperate cases we must act without knowledge : — and this is the case 
supposed to be analogous with the believing in supernatural religion ! "We 
are supposed to be desperately driven to believe because if we do not God 
will damn us to everlasting fire ! It is to save ourselves from hell that we 
must — not believe, for nature has made it impossible for us to believe with- 
out sufficient evidence, but — try to blind ourselves to the deficiency of 
evidence, to seal up our minds with prejudice lest we should not be able 
to help seeing the other side of the question ; that we must pretend to be- 
believe, or try to deceive ourselves into thinking that we do believe : — for 
attainment of which religious (!) frame of mind the unnatural austerities 
of monkish asceticism have been found to be the only appropriate prepara- 
tion. A Pascal endeavouring to cancel his keen intelligence by mortifying 
himself into humiliating submission to the monstrous demands of an un- 
reasonable creed, is a piteous spectacle that should serve as a warning to 
the end of time. 

Truly, it is "the necessities of the lower nature operating on the 
higher" which, as they make men selfishly rash in worldly affairs, so also 
induce them to sacrifice the proper, really beneficial use of the present life, 



168 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[no ground for belief in 

which his reason does not tell him that he has sufficient evidence ; but a 
part of that very evidence is often the dictate of feeling ; and genuine 
reason will listen to the heart, as not always, nor perhaps more frequently 
than otherwise, a suspicious pleader. If, as Pascal says so truly, it some- 
times has its reasons which the reason cannot comprehend, it has also its 
reasons which the reason thoroughly understands. " The bereaved mourner 
who seeks to know "whether the 'vale, vale, in ceternum vale, is really 
the proper utterance of a breaking heart as it closes the sepulchre on 
the object of its love," will confess that "the Fabulous of the Christian 
is better than the Infidel's True."* 



XXXIII. Thus, then, stripped of the religious wealth that has 
Without belief heen treasured up for ages, without solid ground for be- 
in God, man sinks lief in God or in his own immortality, what is left to the 
towards a level Infidel ? Nothing but the bare Actual : that which is 

with the condition manifest to his own senses and consciousness, and a little 
of brutes. . . . ' 

dim history of the past, derived from the scarcely-to-be- 
trusted experience of fellow-men ; a blind, tremendous Power of unfeeling 
Nature, — dead, material Nature without a Soul ; and his own proud 
independence of thought — perhaps already snapped at the root, its fibres 
strained with the tension of the effort to pull down God from his throne in 
heaven, and relapsing into imbecile despair. To the earth he belongs, 
and to the earth he is hastening to return, like all other forms of brute, 
of vegetable existence, that grow only to decay. — "The worm is my 
sister !" — " one thing befalleth the man and the beast." — And if he recoil 
shudderingly from this thought, the possible alternative to him in his 
present condition is only worse, since there is now on the other side, 
where peace and joy unspeakable might have been, only a " fearful looking- 
for of judgment." On the nature and extent of that punishment, no fellow- 
mortal should dare pronounce ; but certainly the Scriptures have set the 
seal of condemnation on that unbelief which is persistent in rejection of the 
offered word of God. If Christianity after all be true, the awful future, to 
the announcement of which he has turned a deaf ear, will come upon him 
in all its dread reality ; his soul will be amongst the lost, who have 
willingly done despite unto the spirit of Grace, aud cast away the sole 
means of salvation which the wisdom of Omnipotence has ordained. 

Regarding, however, his state merely in a temporal point of view, it is 
one which a philosopher with a large heart must find it hard to commend. 
Reason, cold, self-reliant reason, is elevated into the God of humanity ; 

* Eclipse of Faith, pp. 444, 446, 70, 447. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



169 



THE EXISTENCE OP GOD.] 

for the sake of propitiating that favour which they hope will repay them 
with immortal interest : forgetting that while, as they think, they are 
saving themselves from the wrath to come, they are not safe from the 
evil consequences that inevitably attend the perversion of nature, and the 
disregard of truth. 

Of that more venial kind of unreasoning faith which springs from excess 
of feeling, that can fill up the measure of the faintest probability to cer- 
tainty out of the vehemence of its own desires, or from the sorrow whose 
importunate cries for relief find an echo in every human breast ; — it can 
only be said, that the weakness of our nature must not control its strength. 



XXXIII. Whoever has been honestly carrying out his pursuit of truth, 
cannot be in a worse position on that account : to think otherwise appears 
to us the highest impiety. Whatever good can be supposed in store for 
mankind in general, cannot be so forfeited by him. As he knows that the 
Divine Reality of things remains immutably the same, whatever be his 
puny perception of it, — that God is what He is, whether we believe in 
Him or not, — so also he has the stable confidence, founded upon the tendency 
observable in nature to associate the highest good with the exercise of the 
highest faculties, that he himself will never be really the worse off for mere 
mistake. He has faith, that by truth and honesty he can lose nothing. If 
there is more truth in Christianity than he is at present able to discover, 
still it must be for him also in the end. But if his convictions are well 
founded, he has lost only what is delusive ; and he has the present gain, 
that the real becomes of greater value to him. 

The Infidel towards Christianity is a Believer in Nature, in a sense 
that seems to make it a new revelation to him. It has become to him 
more magnificent and more dear, since he no longer regards it as what 
he is bound to despise or slightly esteem, as what he ought to endea- 
vour to separate himself from and rise superior to. Now that he feels him- 
self to belong to it solely and entirely, it has for him a profounder influ- 
ence, soothing while unflattering, and by its silent majesty rebuking the 
littleness of his former conceit. He recognizes it as his proper glory to be 
a part of the grand homogeneous Whole. He has a new-born reverence 
for the meanest of its creatures, and is not ashamed to own himself akin 
with the worm that crawls at his feet, with the green blade of grass. 
Highest as he stands among the present inhabitants of this planet, he 
rejoices to believe that new forms of life may yet appear as superior to 
himself as he is to the lowest of these. 

The Infidel has Nature. He takes up his possession of all her rich 
variety and glorious abundance, teeming with promise for the future. He 
cultivates science with a new ardour, so that it becomes to him a religion. 



170 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[practical and moral 

to satisfy which all the warm, trusting impulses of the heart, are relent- 
lessly sacrificed. The feelings are chained down to earthly objects. There 
is no Father of Spirits to trust, no Infinite Goodness to adore ; " man is 
the only object for the affections of man." Nor let his spiritual aspirations 
ascend to heaven : there is no Heaven for the unbeliever : let him clip the 
wings of his soul, that it may wander to and fro on the earth. Here is the 
home and the grave of man. Why need he cultivate the lofty faculties of 
his nature 1 — they have no immortal sphere. A few short years and they 
are extinguished for ever ! If the force of genius compels him to creations 
that will be immortal — immortal by a poor figure of speech ! — for his 
descendants, yet he himself will have no joy therein, mouldering in the 
unconscious grave. Surely, under this blighting influence, the nature of 
man must grovel more and more, and become more of the earthly nature 
of that low world to which he clings.* 

Is it thus that the race can progress, deprived of those incitements which 
have shown their power hitherto in drawing man out of barbarism into 
generous civilization, throughout the whole course of his history? The 
history of Religion has run constantly parallel with that of civilization. 
The belief in God has become purer and more intense in exact proportion 
with increasing general enlightenment. And yet, when that enlightenment 
is most congratulating itself on the height of its attainments, it seeks to 
throw aside the companion of its progress, the Religion that has been the 
sustainer and life-blood of its development ! And thus we come again to 
the true source of this attempt to abolish Deity, the old rebellion of man's 
Pride against God's Authority. Man, thinking himself near to angel, feels 

* Dr. Arnold says : " The real proof is the practical one ; that is, let a man live 
on the hypothesis of its falsehood, the practical result will be had ; that is, a man's 
besetting and constitutional faults will not be checked ; and some of his noblest feel- 
ings will be unexercised, so that if he be right in his opinions, truth and goodness 
are at variance with one another, and falsehood is more favourable to our moral 
perfection than truth ; which seems the most monstrous conclusion, which the human 
mind can possibly arrive at. . If I were talking with an Atheist, I should lay a great 
deal of stress on faith as a necessary condition of our nature, and as a gift of God to 
be earnestly sought for in the way which God has appointed, that is, by striving to 
do his will. For faith does no violence to the understanding ; but the intellectual 
difficulties being balanced, and it being necessary to act on the one side or the other, 
faith determines a man to embrace that side which leads to moral and practical per- 
fection ; and unbelief leads him to embrace the opposite, or what I may call the 
Devil's religion, which is, after all, quite as much beset with intellectual difficulties 
as God's religion is, and morally is nothing but one mass of difficulties and monstro- 
sities." " I wish to make the main point not the truth of Christianity per se, as a 
theorem to be proved, but the wisdom of our abiding in it, and whether there is 
any thing else for it but the life of beast or of devil " Life of Arnold, Vol. I. pp. 
312, 306. 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



171 



CONSEQUENCES OF UNBELIEF.] 

And he lias a noble inheritance of stored-up thought ; and, better still, 
the possession of the same powers of mind which have originated all 
those religions, philosophies, poetries, which have exalted man so high as 
to make him think himself too divine for earth. — In the little world of 
our own mind, each one of us images the experience of mankind. We have 
our era of fetish worship, our overwhelming sense of physical power ; our 
admiring perception of order and law, of mechanically-controlling intel- 
ligence ; the formation of each era being submerged in turn by new tides 
of thought. At length the sublime consciousness of the dominion of mind 
over matter rises as a distinct revelation, a Christ walking over the 
waves : — mind that is not intelligence alone, but with it moral greatness, and 
the all-harmonizing power of love. All these successive revelations dawn 
within the individual mind, and each mind possesses, or may possess, the 
good out of all. Christianity is ours, as well as all that have gone before it. 
We have the mental need that gave rise to them, the mental capacity akin 
to that which created, and which realized them. Our appreciation of them 
is a treasure in possession for ever. When religious conceptions, as they 
have been hitherto unconscious growths, come to be conscious creations, 
perhaps they will prove to give a finer satisfaction to the mind : as the 
works of Shakspeare delight us more as fictions of human genius, than 
they would if they appeared to us, as they might be supposed to do to 
rude uncultivated readers, the simple relations of actual facts. We have 
in this the worship of Genius. But yet more worthy of our homage is the 
Practical Goodness, which by its heroic conquests over evil, seems Genius 
in Action ; and the noble enthusiasm of Love, the Genius of the Heart, 
which annihilates self in generous devotion to others' good. In all these 
we have " Incarnations of Deity," to worship and to imitate ; for we also 
have the elements of the godlike within us. 

The Infidel has freedom from Superstition. His mind is relieved from 
the intolerable burden of supposed obligation to believe what it cannot 
believe, and is free to develop itself healthily according to the Divine 
energy within it ; in the way of right reason, scientific truthfulness, 
natural human affection. He has no double, contradictory notions about 
earthly desires and heavenly inspirations ; no necessity for subjugation of 
the natural constitution as being at enmity with God ; no puzzling doubt as 
to the probability of Providential interference, but a clear perception that 
he must work and help himself. He has an intelligible sphere of action, 
an intelligible rule of duty. "The work that his hand findeth to do" in 
this present world, he can " do it with his might", not fearing that he 
will suffer for it in another. 

He has the Divine impulse to grow, to aspire ; there is no fear that 
Nature should make a retrograde movement, and that man should fall in 
love with the condition of brutes, and seek to assimilate himself with them. 



172 



OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



[practical and moral, 

the demoniacal temptation to be as God ; and like the insurgent Satan he 
must fall, unless the Divine grace of Humility arrest his headlong course. 

Most commonly, in the gracious dealing of God with his rebellious 
children, this humility comes with affliction. God sends sorrow, and the 
stern heart is melted. It feels it cannot do without Him. And when 
once the blessed act of Submission is accomplished, the love of God pours 
into the opened soul, and gives it the promise of all things. But it is 
God who works in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure ; 
and it is the will of God that man should first feel his need and seek His 
aid. Mere human argument is most vain to convince the Infidel, serving 
only as an occasion for the dexterous exercise of those reasoning 
powers on whose all-sufficiency he relies so confidently, so presump- 
tuously. It may, however, be made the means of helping those who are 
wavering, and not yet hardened against the instincts of Faith, which 
are the teachings of God : — and who is there that would not desire to 
urge every fellow-being to take earnest, prayerful heed, before he commit 
himself to the suicidal negation of belief, which condemns him to rank 
himself with the beasts that perish, to live "without God and without 
hope in the world" ! 



ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 



173 



CONSEQUENCES OP UNBELIEF.] 

These very visions of heaven and immortal Gods, show that he will ever, 
in his desires at least, be aiming rather at a sphere above him : — by these 
desires being ever also drawn upwards in actual fact. 

But it is thought that the recognition of these bright visions as his own 
• creations, will henceforth check his aspirations, and degrade them into self- 
glorification. — It would be but a short-lived folly : there is nothing vainer 
than too high an opinion of self. All power of mind that is not employed 
to good purposes, soon becomes a wreck, and leaves no honour behind. 

Nature will not suffer man to be proud. She makes him feel, and 
warns him to bear in mind, that a mighty Power rules his destiny which, 
he is all unable to resist. To bring his will into harmony with that Power, 
is the wisdom, the religion, she is ever instilling into him. She gave to 
him as the first lesson of that religion, that the worship he must render 
to the God of nature is to work, as He works, not for the good of one, 
but of all ; and she has for him also the second lesson, that he should 
submit, with unrepining acquiescence, to the pain and loss which that 
Divine working — through which he has enjoyed so much, and whose ulti- 
mate ends he believes so beneficent, — may bring upon himself, even when 
they seem to conduce only to the general and not to his personal good. 
The article of Mahomedan faith is also that of Nature, 4 e God is God, and 
man is Islam," that which surrenders itself, which trusts : — only, the trust 

that she inspires is not servile, but manly. And for the assurance that 

this religion of Nature is sufficient as regards the happiness of man, we 
have just ground, in the very recognition that it does indeed effectually 
promote the true unfolding of his whole being, in which happiness consists. 
Whatever thwarts this, must lead to misery ; whatever fulfils it, must be 
in the end the means of securing the only real Good. 



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